Web Application

A web application is a program you use in a browser that does work and remembers it. A website mostly tells you things, so it shows the opening hours, the prices and the address, and it looks the same to everyone who visits. An application is different because it knows who you are, keeps your records and changes what it shows based on what you did last time.

The clinic booking screen is the clearest example, because a website can only print a phone number under the word appointments. A web application shows the free slots for Tuesday afternoon, holds one for a patient and sends the reminder. It also refuses to give the same eleven o'clock to two people, so nobody has to keep a paper diary in step with it. The shop till is the second example, because it takes the money and drops the stock count by one, so the owner sees the day's takings from home that evening.

So the honest line is this: if the only thing your pages do is inform, you want a website. If staff or customers need to sign in, save something and come back to it later, you have crossed into web application development. The four signs are accounts, saved records, rules about who is allowed to see what, and reports at the end of the month.

That line is also where the price gap comes from, and it surprises people. A brochure site is mostly design and words, so a small team can finish it in weeks. An application has rules, permissions, money and records that must never be lost. That is why it needs testing, a safe place to store data and someone to keep it running. It is normal for it to cost several times more than a designed website, so ask a supplier which of the two they are quoting before you compare prices.

Linkysoft builds both, and the first meeting is usually about telling them apart. Sometimes a clinic needs only a good site and a phone, and sometimes it needs the booking, the file and the invoice, which is what a system like DocMz already does. Linkysoft would rather say that in the first hour than in the third month.