Web applications. A term of curiosity. We are more familiar with websites & mobile applications. But what are these web apps?

Web applications are interactive web platforms, that provides user engagement more than websites do. One of the most famous web apps we use is Facebook, but most of us are unaware that is it a web app.

It is important to be aware of the difference between a website and a web app. A website is a compilation of many web pages, which is viewed on a browser. More often these webpages are static pages that provide information to website visitors. Websites don’t encourage user engagement like web apps do.

In Contrast, a web application is a software that is viewable on a web browser. Web apps don’t focus on marketing as much as websites. Since it is a software, it involves user engagement. As mentioned above, Facebook the commonly known web app is, therefore, a software with a web view.

• 

Few other commonly known web apps are webmail, Google Doc/ sheets, Google Drive, AliExpress, BookMyShow, Pinterest, etc.

Considering the fact that we are more familiar with mobile apps than with web apps, here are a few,

Differences between Mobile apps & Web apps

• The main difference is that Web Apps runs on a browser whilst mobile apps run on a mobile device itself.
  • Most web apps are mobile friendly, thus web apps are mobile compatible too.

• Mobile Applications are developed for a particular Environment and it cannot replicate to other environments. But Web Applications are independent of these environments and can adapt to any & all devices.
• Web Applications require active internet while Mobile App works without active internet.
• A web Application’s resource usage is limited to its resources provided by the browser (cannot use the resources provided by the system), but mobile applications can use as much as it requires.
• Since the web application cannot use the resources provided by the system, it requires the service set up to the cloud to connect to the remote database for all the purpose. Mobile applications can use the database provided by the system itself.
• In terms of developing the application, designing UI for web apps is difficult, in comparison to Mobile app UI designing. This is due to the lack of framework guidelines & the multiple numbers of screen resolutions.
• Most importantly, web apps are more vulnerable towards hacking, as the code is easily inspected unlike the code of a mobile app.

Therefore, a web app is merely a software with a web interface, that requires a constant internet connection to function. They are mobile compatible as well as web compatible.