Forum Discussion
Are subsites getting deprecated in SPO?
Trevor Seward Comm sites can not be subsites
I have created Communication sites as subsites. (There is a way) 
I'm surprised on having public comm sites for each department, each division, each team, ....... !!!!!
Let's assume the department IT.
It will have minimum 5 divisions, each division will have minimum 5 team and each team will have minimum 5 sub teams.
In this case, 1+5x5x5 = 126 public comm sites just for IT !!!!! 
[I'm poor in Mathematics, pardon me for any miscalculations 
]
I have to ask, why are you concerned about the number of sites in your tenant? Given you'll likely never come close to the limit...
Again, this is a re-do of information architecture. Subsites have always been poor IA, confusing where permissions were applied at, etc. A flat architecture aims to resolve these issues. You might even re-think why you're needing to create a public site per team -- could they just have their own pages on a single site with appropriate access controls? Again, it's about rethinking IA.
You can use Azure Workspaces to also control access across a broad number of sites (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/manage-apps/access-panel-workspaces) -- self-service, even.
Jonathan Herschel You're welcome! Glad it helped you.
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- after reading these over, I have to say that flattening out and migrating subsites to their own site collection has been rewarding. Permissions are simplified, content organized and easily movable from one hub to another (or left on their own)... Thanks Trevor and Ganeshsanap for your replies, they helped me a few years ago..
Check below documentation which will help you to understand the need to flat topologies & how to design flat topology:
Information Architecture - Site Topology
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Hi, Is there any reference on Microsoft Site that suggests best practices is a flat structure over nested?
That would help- Subsites aren't the preferred IA at this point. You're welcome to argue until you're blue in the face, of course.
Azure access can be delegated -- Azure has very fine grained roles, fortunately. Trevor Seward Based on your responses I see that you are worried about permissions. Unfortunately we did not find any issues with that.
Azure !?
There are organizations where SharePoint Admins do not have access to such level.
One site for every team!?
Sorry! Each team produces more content. They need own space to publish their articles. It will be cumbersome if we provide one site for all. (No, No for item level permission. not at all)
Already users are thinking to move their content to CONFLUENCE because of classic SharePoint.
We(IT) got great relief after seeing Modern site features. Users are liking it.
I request Microsoft, not to deprecate subsites.
And they even promised that metadata navigation is coming to modern sites but you are claiming that it will be deprecated !!!!!
Fingers crossed
