Desktop Application vs Web Application

An Application is a set of instructions to achieve a particular task for end users. An application can be divided into two general classes: Desktop Application and Web Application.

1. Desktop Application: The application developed to run in a particular system is called Desktop Application.
2. Web Application: The application developed to run in server system so that it will be run on different client systems is called Web Application or Web-based Applications.

Benefits of a Web Application:

• A web application is any application that uses a web browser as a client. The application can be as simple as a message board or a guest sign-in book on a website, or as complex as a word processor or a spreadsheet.
• A web application relieves the developer of the responsibility of building a client for a specific type of computer or a specific operating system. Since the client runs in a web browser, the user could be using an IBM-compatible or a Mac. They can be running Windows XP or Windows Vista. They can even be using Internet Explorer or Firefox, though some applications require a specific web browser.
• Web applications commonly use a combination of server-side script (ASP, PHP, etc) and client-side script (HTML, Javascript, etc.) to develop the application. The client-side script deals with the presentation of the information while the server-side script deals with all the hard stuff like storing and retrieving the information.