Developer Site Collection = Team Site (Classic)?

[Charisma Riley]

I am implementing a development site for building out SPFx solutions. However, when I create the developer site collection, it shows up as a classic Team site in the list of Active sites. Can I just make a modern team site, then, as the developer site collection? Or does the "Developer" site collection have special properties and so I need to stick with it? (I was hoping to have an entirely Modern UI in this site collection, so I would prefer to just create a new modern Team site, if there is no difference between the developer site collection and a team site.)

Thanks, in advance!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

"Developer Site Collections" were used for SharePoint Add-Ins. You don't need these for SPFx development. You can use any site collection you want.

[#3]

@Beau: Great, thanks! So if I want to create add-ins, though, I need to use a Developer site collection? And if so, why? Does it have special qualities? Thanks again!

[#4]

@Charisma Riley Yes, if you are building Add-Ins, you'll want a developer site collection. The main reason for this is because Developer Site Collections have "Side Loading" enabled by default. This means you can actively deploy/debug solutions from Visual Studio on the site. On all other site templates, "side loading" is disabled by default (for security reasons), thus you can't debug add-ins.

Hope this clarifies.

[#5]

@Beau Cameron : Yes, this has been awesome. Thank you!