Everyone is familiar with mobile applications: from booking tickets to a football game, to checking the weather, “there’s an app for that” is a truism. We listen to music on mobile apps, socialize, connect to online classes, and more.
But what are “web applications?” They’re not exactly like mobile applications, and they’re not a simple website like the one you’re reading now. That said, you probably use a web application every day and might not know it.
In short, web applications are used for interaction between the user and a given application. Take for instance a social media platform like Facebook. Typically on Facebook you scroll through posts, send messages to friends and family, and share updates. These actions are taken on your side with the “web application” and would typically not be possible on a simple website.
In this article we take a deeper look into web applications, how they’re used, some of the more popular applications, and why it’s essential for businesses running web applications to professionally monitor them for performance and uptime.
Web Applications: An Overview
A key way web applications are different from mobile apps is that they do not need to be installed as separate applications on a user’s desktop, and can be accessed via web browsers over the Internet.
A web application, just like a website, requires a web server, application server, and a database. The server manages requests from a client, the application server handles the task requested, and the database stores relevant information.
Typically web applications have short development cycles and are developed by small teams. Most developers write web apps in HTML5, Java, or CSS for the front-end. Server-side programming is typically done in Java, Python, and Ruby.
A typical web application flow will look something like this:
- An online user makes a request to a web server through a web browser or the app’s UI
- The web server sends this request to the web application server
- The web application server handles requested task – e.g. it queries the database or processes data – and generates results
- The web application server delivers the results to the web server
- The web server delivers the requested information back to the user
Some Benefits of Web Applications
Many kinds of dynamic web applications exist, from single- to multiple pages. Web applications can feature many functional and design elements, including animation, access via a log in portal, content management systems, and ecommerce. In short, if you can imagine something being done online, it can probably be accomplished with a web application.
Here are some of the benefits to web applications.
- Web apps run on numerous platforms across operating systems in all compatible browsers
- Users will all have the same experience of the web application, which eliminates compatibility issues
- Web applications are not installed on users’ local hard drives, which eliminates space limitations and increases accessibility
- Web applications reduce or eliminate software piracy for SaaS businesses
With the massive increase in Internet use both from companies and individuals, we’ve seen a near-ubiquitous adoption of web applications from companies shifting away from traditional business models to cloud- and grid-based ways of doing business.
Using web applications, businesses can streamline their operations, reduce costs, and deliver better experiences to their online users through apps including word processes, spreadsheets, email clients, and really everything users hitherto did on locally installed desktop versions, all with the added benefit of cross-platform compatibility for broader reach and easy access.
Some Examples of Web Applications
E-mail, word processors, shopping carts–you name it. Web applications are also used for editing software, file-type conversions, such as PDF to DOCX. converters, and software that can scan files as well. Facebook messenger is a web application, and so are platforms like Gmail or Yahoo.
Collaboration becomes possible with web applications–so apps like Slack or services like Google Docs or Google Drive allow for the shareability of documents, and they can help people work together across platforms or devices.
The general trend for web applications revolves around user need; so depending upon the user’s requirements, web applications can range from online banking tools, social media apps, online shopping, information hubs like wikis and more.
Popular entertainment brands like Netflix rely on a web application to serve millions of users, accessible across devices and operating systems. Netflix is a great example of how web applications serve as ideal content platforms. Your experience of Netflix will be equally great on your desktop (web application) or phone (mobile application).
Web applications are also huge for online productivity and collaboration. You may remember in the past, you had to install the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) on your computer, taking up a lot of space and resources. Now, just like Google’s Workspace, Microsoft Office has gone online – Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all now web applications, making collaboration easy since you can share work and collaborate in real-time online from any browser. And if you prefer to work locally, you can still go the old fashioned route and install Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on your device, all fully compatible with the web application versions of these.
Web Applications vs. Native Applications
An important distinction to be made here is between native applications and web applications.
Briefly, a native application is built for a specific platform such as Android or iPhone, leveraging their respective code libraries and hardware features. In contrast, a web application is hosted online and is thus accessible from either a desktop browser or a mobile device.
In short, web applications are available more or less universality whereas native applications can only function on the platform for which they had been defined. Native apps need to be installed on a particular device. Native apps can be beneficial because of their ability to leverage device resources and availability without an Internet connection. Web applications can only function over the Internet.
Web Applications & the Cloud
Most of today’s web applications are optimized for the cloud. You may in fact be using one as you read this article. Gmail, WhatsApp, Google Drive, and Facebook are all cloud-based web applications.
Why are so many web applications cloud-based? Cloud-based web applications have lower memory requirements and a smaller footprint.
The more widely known cloud platforms include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft’s Azure. Developers, depending on whether they use a public or provide cloud, can potentially access unlimited bandwidth and storage via Virtual Machines, which in turn has the potential to result in vastly higher throughput than on-prem servers.
Practically speaking, this means web application developers can server more users with existing hardware without having to make expensive upgrades to in-house servers or infrastructure. Beyond this, developers leverage “pay-as-you-go” cloud services and can scale up or down as needed and in real time.
Web Application Monitoring & Your Business
If you’re responsible for a web application that serves your business’ users, monitoring its performance and uptime needs to be top of mind at all times.
With professional web application monitoring, you and your team will have the ability to diagnose and detect any and all issues with your web applications, so you can get ahead of problems and address serious issues before they impact your users.
Development and QA teams are in many cases the first line of defense for web application performance issues, and efficiency is key. Teams can spend days or weeks analyzing vast amounts of data to try and unpack a particularly complex issue, if they don’t have the right web application performance monitoring tools.
Proper and professional web application monitoring tools will offer your team both page-time and object-level analyses so you can audit overall performance as well as individual components, include those from third parties. Beyond this, there’s transaction analysis that allows you to detect abnormal transaction performance and receive alerts on any issues your users are experiencing, including slow pages and slow page times.
The right web application monitoring tool will also help you visualize your users’ journey, or how your users are navigating your web application or website. Analytics will help you directly quantify the ways in which web performance impacts your business, from conversions, user paths, revenue, and both low- and high-performing pages and sections of your online presence.
Through real-time alerts, you can create a system for yourself and your team to ensure rapid response to any issues and engender of a culture of responsibility and assuredness around your web applications, 24/7 and 365. Your websites and web applications never sleep, and neither should your monitoring. Web application monitoring tools exist to give confidence and peace of mind to businesses at all scales, so developers and stakeholders can be sure users are getting the best possible experience from mission-critical web applications.
In short, monitoring the uptime and performance of your web applications is essential for any serious business. Learn more about our top picks of web application monitoring on our homepage.
