The offline installer is highly reliable for enterprise environments or air-gapped systems. However, because it is a "snapshot," it doesn't auto-update. You have to re-run the layout command to fetch newer security patches and then point your offline machines to the updated folder. Pros:
One of the most compelling features of the offline installer is the ability to curate the workload. Visual Studio 2017 is modular. A game developer doesn't need the Azure SDK, and a web developer doesn't need the C++ compiler. visual studio 2017 offline installer iso