What Are Web Applications And What Are Their Benefits?

We live in a world that uses the internet all the time. Given that we use the internet so much and that overall internet speeds have increased on average, users can access and use the internet without limitations.

This brought a new era of programming, the kind that can allow the user to use the internet rather than their own devices to run a program or service. These types of programs that the user runs on the internet, particularly in the browser, are called web applications. The term is mentioned in modern programming all the time. But, what does it mean exactly?

Let us take a deeper dive into web apps and their benefits.

Web Applications – Powering Modern Computing

Why install dedicated, or rather, native software, when you can open an application in your browser and enjoy it? There are reasons to use native applications but for most everyday use cases, web apps make more sense.

Web applications are basically apps that run in your browser. They have a client and server side and they are system-agnostic, since they run in a browser, on the client side of things. Web apps can be anything from contact forms to word processors or spreadsheet tools like Google Docs and Sheets. Web apps have been popping up recently and here is why.

System Agnostic Apps

When you can have an application that works on iOS, macs, Windows, Linuxes, Android, Blackberry or even a washing machine that has a browser, then you have made a great application. Cross platform apps are the best kind and with web apps, anything you make is cross platform compatible. 

You could work from whichever system, simply due to the nature of the app. That means that you can have clients running any type of machine, which broadens the market and eventually, increases income.

Management and Maintenance

Web apps are problematic from the server side of things, because that is where they are installed and where they operate from. This gives the programmers and developers fewer problems to work with. The only problems could be on the server side of things. Yes, you would need to use a client to test the application, but fixing the problem is easier and maintenance would cost less time and money. The client would not need to receive any updates, they would just need to run a browser.

Security and Safety

Web applications remove access to the client for some sensitive things. Clients can access certain information, but they would not be able to access all of it unless you build an app that allows that. This leaves all the data on the servers, secure and safe from any attacks. The fewer people have access to all the data on the servers, the better. 

This can easily be done through web apps by simply not providing the users with any option of accessing any secure data, thus making it more secure, for themselves and yourself. With no links to the secure servers, everything would have to be accessed locally.

Cost

Web applications cost less money for maintenance and that is a fact. Some may cost more upfront, since they need to be comprehensive and work well on all browsers. This is difficult to achieve so most programmers focus only on popular browsers. However, the cost of maintaining a web app is cheaper than a native app on three different systems.

Web applications are very useful in today’s world and are frequently used by everybody who fills a form or uses a word processor or language checker. They have many benefits and the above-mentioned are but some of them.