WebApp and Native Application

Internet has become not only a communications network, but also an application execution platform, a kind of operating system, and the browser constitutes its interface.

That is why, in many cases, developers are presented with a question: native application or web application?

A native application is one that runs by making direct calls to the operating system and does not need a connection to run

Every operating system provides a number of resources in the form of APIs (interface from programming applications) and system calls that perform certain functions and perform certain tasks for applications.

Programs that use these resources for their functioning Are the native apps, which are so called because they run "natively" on the system, without requiring any other support.

By contrast, WebApps run on the server and need a web browser to interact with the user.

As its name already suggests, a WebApp is one that needs a web browser to run.

In fact, in the vast majority of WebApps, the browser is nothing more than a platform to display the user interface and interact with it, being executed mainly on a server remote.

This way of working has some advantages and some disadvantages in comparison with native applications.

In the first place, WebApps are limited in terms of resources and actions that they can carry out to what allows the browser, which can mean in many cases not being able to use all the resources of the computer.

We will also need an Internet connection for its execution, or to the local network if the application is for private use. As the WebApp must load, in any case, resources from its remote location since, in fact, it resides on the server, in the event that we do not have a connection, we can do little.

On the other hand, among the advantages we can mention the fact that it consumes less device resources locally; when running on the server with the interface presenting itself through the browser, it is the server that which takes away the main workload, with the local device simply displaying the results.

This leads us to that with a hardware less powerful, we can run apps much heavier.

The application updates will be simpler, since normally we will only have to update the part that resides on the server, since on the local device we will barely have a icon with a link pointing to the app from the server.

It is debatable whether the safety It will also improve, but at least we reduced the attack vectors.

Each of the models has its field of application

And that is why one is not superior to the other; Thus, if we are working on an application that requires queries to centralized information and online services, surely the WebApp model It will be the ideal one, while if we need to get the most out of the hardware and use functionalities depending on the phone model, the best will be a app native.

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