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Any site you create in SharePoint is a subsite since it will reside under some other site in your site hierarchy. The only site that is a true site and not a subsite is the very top site of the site collection since it does not appear under any other sites.
What is the purpose of a subsite?
It essentially allows you to cherry pick various site collections whether they are Office 365 Group Sites, Communication Sites or just plain and simple regular classic site collections and bring them under an umbrella with common navigation and security.
What’s the difference between a SharePoint library and a subsite?
Each department can have (but do not have to) its navigation menu, permissions, lists, and libraries. This information delineation, while allowing easy collaboration, promotes information organization. A SharePoint Document Library, one the most commonly-used libraries, is a container for documents (or electronic forms).
How are hub sites different from subsites and collections?
With Hub Sites, you do not have this problem as there is no physical hierarchy – it is flat information architecture, and each site within a Hub is an independent site (collection). So if you mess up permissions on one site, it does not affect any other sites.
How to visualize the site structure of a subsite?
Subsites often led to pretty deep structures, especially if there was no Governance. To visualize the site structure of a given site collection, you had to use Site Hierarchy feature in the root of a site collection. And if you had many subsites and levels, good luck with that! With Hub Sites and flat architecture, it is nice and easy.
Can a subsite share information with a parent site?
With subsites, it was easy to mess up permissions as, by default, subsites inherit permissions from the parent site and this, inadvertently, can lead to unintentional sharing of confidential information, if you are not careful.