11 Types of Web Application and 15+ Widgets to Speed Up Their Development
The digital landscape of the modern world imposes some additional requirements businesses have to comply with for their successful operation. The need to follow these requirements inevitably leads to fundamental changes in how enterprises create their business models and brings about transformation of their strategies. Nowadays enterprises need to have a web application to be represented on the web and benefit from it, maintaining their market position and increasing profit margin. And here is the thing — businesses can do extremely well if they keep up with the time and make modern web technologies an integral part of their business strategy.
Let’s delve into the advantages of having a web application representing your business in terms of enhanced efficiency, customer engagement and increased profit as a result.
Why are Web Apps Vital for Businesses?
1. Enhanced Accessibility
Web applications ensure quick and easy access to the product for both — your employees and customers, providing the possibilities for seamless collaboration and effective work for the former and anytime interaction with your product for the latter.
2. Streamlined Operations
Web applications contribute to business processes automation, help avoid doing repetitive tasks manually and significantly reduce human error. From inventory management systems to customer relationship management (CRM) tools, web applications help streamline operations uniting a number of complex features on the basis of a single platform. As a result, you save your employees’ time giving them the possibility to focus on strategic goals.
3. Improved Customer Engagement
In an era where customers’ experience is the number one concern, web apps equip businesses with the necessary tools for enhancing interaction with their clients. Features such as chatbots, customer portals, and personalized dashboards enable companies to offer tailored experiences that satisfy individual needs. With the help of data analytics tools within web applications, businesses can keep track of customer behavior, allowing for more targeted marketing strategies and improved service delivery.
4. Cost-Effectiveness
When you decide on developing a web app rather than a mobile app or traditional software, you gain a number of advantages. Being platform-agnostic, web applications help businesses significantly cut on the expenses associated with app support on different platforms or software maintenance on personal devices.
5. Scalability and Flexibility
Web applications have one more notable advantage — they are easily scalable and flexible in case your business faces user demand upsurge or the necessity of adding new functionalities. As your business grows your expenses on web application enhancement will grow proportionately, as you do not need to make extra investments associated with the entire modification of the software to meet the increasing demands of the customers and the market.
6. Enhanced Collaboration
Web applications facilitate interaction between team members providing a centralized platform that encompasses possibilities of quick and efficient communication, seamless task and project management. Tools for scheduling, document editing and exchanging messages provide a favorable environment for successful team work irrespective of the physical location of the team members which results in higher performance and faster project completion.
9. Competitive Advantage
Introduction of modern technologies will definitely help you stand out from the pack giving you a competitive advantage in the market. Web applications can provide you with unique functionalities that contribute to positive customer experiences and improve internal processes.
10. Real-Time Analytics
Analytics tools web applications are often equipped with allow enterprises to carry out real-time tracking of performance metrics. This approach ensures companies make accurate decisions relying on current trends and user behavior. Being aware of how things are functioning helps businesses upgrade their strategies for better results.
As you can see, in today’s competitive and saturated market, it is not an easy task to achieve lasting success without a well-designed web app.
Many leading companies utilize web applications to enhance their services — Google (eCommerce web app), Amazon (Google Docs and Google Sheets apps), Netflix (streaming platform) — and it is the very beginning of the list.
We have just considered the main reasons why it is crucial to have a web application, but what to do next if we decide on implementing one in our business? Well, a good question. And the answer is — we need to choose the best-suited type of a web app for our particular case. Let’s dive in.
Types of Web Applications
In this article, we are going to analyze 11 types of web apps considering the tasks they are most suited for, their advantages and disadvantages, as well as look at a number of widgets that can be integrated into this or that kind of an app to fully meet the needs of your business.
1. Static Web Applications
The distinctive feature of static web applications is that they contain a number of ready-made web pages with static content (static HTML templates, CSS and JavaScript files) and do not involve server-side processing, which means they need no server-side (backend) as the files are delivered directly to the user’s browser from the web server.
The simple nature of static web applications provides a number of advantages: they are easier to design and host, they offer a high level of performance, including fast loading, contributing to positive user experience.
However, this simplicity brings about a number of disadvantages: static web applications have limited interactivity and are not suitable for dynamic content.
The most common use cases of static web applications include corporate sites, resume and portfolio websites, products or services landings, blogs, documentation websites.
The widgets that can be used to create static web applications normally include basic HTML/CSS elements, e.g.:
- layouts widgets: carousel, accordion, layout;
- control widgets: button, color selectors, select;
- navigation widgets: sidebar, menu.
2. Dynamic Web Applications
Dynamic web applications are not static and they do not supply every user with the same content like static web applications do. In case of dynamic web applications, the data are generated in real-time on the server-side as a response to users’ actions on the client-side. As you can see, this type of application uses a request-response scenario for generating content, so it cannot function without a server (backend).
The advantages of choosing a dynamic web application for your business include more engaging and personalized user experience, high level of interactivity, scalability and flexibility.
However, there is the other side of the coin — as dynamic web apps use backend languages to ensure interaction with data stored on a server in databases, creating this type of apps is more complicated and expensive and it involves more server resources. When choosing this kind of application you also need to take care about an enhanced solution for tackling performance issues that come with its complexity.
The most common use cases of dynamic web applications include calendar sites, document and data management, forums, chats, social media platforms.
Here is a number of widgets that can be included into your dynamic web application:
- file management solutions, like Webix JavaScript File Manager that provides a wide functionality for document management systems together with enhanced user experience;
- time management solutions, like Webix JS Scheduler that equips you with modern tools for planning, booking items and scheduling;
- solution for messages exchange, like Webix Chat enabling you to integrate chat and messenger functionalities into your business app using a single complex widget with all necessary tools for effective communication.
- solution for working with table data, like Webix DataTable — deeply optimized widget for working with large datasets providing exceptionally high performance regardless of your dataset size.
You can find a detailed analysis of Webix DataTable performance in the article Webix JS DataTable Best-in-class Performance.
3. Single-Page Applications (SPAs)
A single-page application (SPA) is an application that does not use the traditional scenario of reloading the whole page in response to users’ actions. In case of an SPA, only a small part of a page that needs to be refreshed is re-rendered, which means that the data are updated dynamically. Users benefit from this behavior experiencing very fast loading. What’s more, frameworks for creating SPAs utilize a reusable components approach to avoid building repetitive UIs with the same functionality.
The advantages of SPAs include enhanced user experience, high loading speed, and fast navigation with minimum lags, fast prototyping and development.
The disadvantages are associated with SEO challenges. Search engines are more used to html while SPAs use dynamic loading via JS — as a result, your app SEO ranking can be low and you will need some extra efforts to tackle the issue. One more distinctive feature of SPAs is that their initial loading time is higher if compared to a traditional web application, as the whole app with all the resources must be loaded initially.
SPAs are commonly used to develop project management solutions, communication platforms, email services, booking platforms.
The examples of widgets that can be using for seamless SPAs design include:
- task management solutions, like Webix Kanban — a ready-to-use component with rich functionality which is designed to be easily built into any project management solution;
- solution for Agile project management, like JavaScript Gantt Chart, enabling you to effectively manage and monitor your projects and resources.
4. Multi-Page Web Applications (MPAs)
Multi-page web applications are more traditional apps with separate pages created by the server and sent to the web browser. The pages are loaded each time the user carries out an action. However, the issue of the full page reload can successfully be solved using AJAX that allows to avoid reloading the whole page — only the needed part of it is re-rendered.
The pros of multi-page applications include better SEO opportunities if compared with single-page applications, quick initial loading, scalability, and tracking opportunities for data analysis.
The cons are as follows: slower navigation, performance issues (resulting from a higher strain on the server), and higher costs as multi-page web applications need more server resources.
The examples of multi-page applications include blogging platforms and e-commerce websites.
Use the advanced data filtering solution — Webix JavaScript Filter to carry out complex filtering in your Multi-page web application.
5. Progressive Web Applications (PWAs)
Progressive web applications look and feel like native mobile apps, nevertheless they are mobile-first websites by nature (they need a browser engine to run them). PWAs combine the benefits of web and platform-specific applications: they can run on both web and mobile platforms from a single codebase, can be accessed directly from the web or installed on the user’s device like platform-specific apps, can function offline and in the background.
Even though PWAs have quite a number of advantages combining the best practices of web and mobile apps development, they still have some disadvantages, as they cannot provide the same level of performance if compared to native apps, have limited access to device features and higher battery consumption.
The examples of PWAs include online stores (PWA introduction contributes to better mobile conversion rates), online travel agencies, and communication platforms.
PWA is a modern technology offering advanced features associated with both web and mobile development. To benefit from this technology even more and make your PWA app even faster, you can use Webix library with a wide range of JS widgets for speeding up your app creation, implementing solutions for easy handling of complex data and introducing UI components with attractive design. In case you decide on building your app with Webix UI components, please, check Webix Jet — a micro framework for Webix UI-based applications.
6. Portal Web Applications
Portal web applications can provide access to a wide range of information, services, and other applications.
They often use access points to make sure only registered users have access to this or that type of content. It means, different categories of users can be directed to a particular section of the website with a customized interface (e.g. via their account). One more advantage of this approach is that the application provider can monitor some activities of the users. This is perfect for websites with paywalls or other strategies such as logins.
Popular educational platforms are the perfect example of this kind of a web app.
Use Webix JavaScript Form UI widget to implement users’ registration into your app providing access to specific content for different categories of your customers.
7. Content Management Systems (CMS)
Content Management Systems (CMS) are platforms that allow the users to create websites and manage content without coding knowledge. You can easily create and modify the content through the Graphic UI provided by the CMS.
CMSs supply you with templates and layouts where you can post your digital content using the admin panel. All the data you populate your website with is stored in a database and you do not need to worry about the technical part.
The benefits of CMS include easy and fast development, no technical skills required for basic functions, good customer service (like forms and chats) and improved SEO capabilities.
The following points can be considered as the drawbacks: overdependence on plugins, limited backend functionalities, necessity to maintain your website on a regular basis to avoid security vulnerabilities. One more thing to add here is that CMSs are not suitable for large projects with multiple processes.
The most typical examples of CMS include WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.
8. E-commerce Web Applications
E-commerce web applications are complex systems used by businesses specializing in selling goods and services. Their main purpose is to make the purchasing process seamless for the users and efficient for the business owners. E-commerce web applications need to be scalable to manage increasing traffic and sales volumes successfully. As this type of a web app deals with customers’ personal information it must protect personal data efficiently as well.
The advantages of E-commerce web applications are scalability and flexibility, enhanced user experience, speed and efficiency.
The disadvantages include security and privacy concerns, internet connectivity dependence, and the need for robust infrastructure.
Webix library is well suited for creating e-commerce web applications, you can check this E-commerce marketplace JavaScript template to find out how to build UIs with the help of it.
9. Rich Internet Web Applications (RIAs)
RIAs are advanced web apps that behave like desktop applications and incorporate a number of characteristics of both the Internet and Personal Computers making them efficient in terms of performance, enhanced user experience, real-time engagement and interaction.
The technologies involved in RIAs creation include AJAX, HTML5, Flash, JavaScript frameworks/libraries allowing to design appealing user interfaces which are managed by a browser.
The advantages of RIAs are cross-platform compatibility, rich user interfaces, offline capabilities, and high performance.
The disadvantages include dependence on plugins and frameworks that can sometimes cause accessibility and compatibility issues.
As an example of RIAs we can mention online gaming platforms, interactive maps and services.
Please, check the pros of integrating Webix JavaScript Map UI widget into your interactive RIA for displaying data related to a particular region.
10. JavaScript-Powered Web Applications
JavaScript-powered web apps are applications that use JavaScript for both the client side and the server side. They use JavaScript frameworks (e.g., React, Angular) to create dynamic applications and are characterized by high performance and efficiency.
The advantages of JavaScript-powered web apps are interactivity, dynamic content, rich user interfaces, server-side compatibility (JS can be used on the server with Node.js), and the possibility of creating SPAs.
The disadvantages include a steeper learning curve and potential code bloat.
The examples of JavaScript-powered web apps include shopping platforms, data visualization tools, browser-based games.
11. Animated Web Applications
Animated web applications use animations for boosting user experience and engagement. Such applications utilize animation techniques over the traditional web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to enhance the user interface.
The benefits of this kind of a web application are improved interaction and engagement, efficient guidance through processes.
Nevertheless, animated web applications must be carefully designed to avoid performance issues due to overuse of complex animations.
Animated web applications are utilized for creating entertainment, e-learning and e-commerce platforms, dashboards, interactive tutorials.
Check Webix JavaScript widgets for data visualization that provide dynamic data visualization with animation and interactive features for your app.
Conclusion
Nowadays, it is imperative for all businesses that wish to be successful to own a web application. To begin with, a good web app can improve user experience, increase sales and enhance customers’ loyalty. Off-the-shelf software like Webix library eases the pressure of designing, developing and testing by doing a part of the work.
Using innovative tools like Webix can help achieve an impressive web traffic, as well as revenue generation. Being committed to innovation is a good strategy that will for sure facilitate your way to success. Choose the proper tool and you will gain even more fascinating and rewarding experience in this way.
