Mobile app development vs Web development: What are the differences?

Mobile app development vs Web development definition? What is different about mobile development? Why businesses need website and mobile app? These must be the concerns of many people who are planning to run your business. This article may be useful to help you orient your suitable platform for your business.

I. Mobile app development vs Web development Definition

Before figuring out the differences between these two services, let’s find out what it is.

1.1. What is Web development?

According to Wikipedia, Web development is the work of developing a website on the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (private network). Web development can range from developing a simple static page of plain text to more sophisticated, complex web applications, e-business websites and social networking services.

In simple terms, Web development generally refers to Web engineering, Web design, Web content development, client communication, client/server side scripting, Web server and configuration network security and e-commerce development.

Therefore, Web development usually deals with the main non-design aspects of building Web sites: writing markup and coding.

1.2. What is Mobile app development?

Mobile devices are gradually becoming the development catalyst for most businesses, regardless of their field. Because of the pressure of that development, iOS – Android mobile application design was born and became the hottest industry in the digital era. 

Mobile application development is the process of making the app compatible with mobile devices using modern programming languages such as C#, Java, etc. The main purpose is to expand the utilities for mobile devices. Applications can be pre-installed on the phone or in production platforms, app stores.

II.  What are the differences between Mobile app development vs Web development

According to the above definition, we can partly understand that there is a clear difference between mobile app development and web development service. Both services require developers to have different skills and abilities. Understanding the two majors will help you choose a better career for the future.

Based on the following factors to distinguish:

2.1. Characteristic

Web Development

Website developers will design, write, and operate website applications. They have to keep customer requirements in mind, make the website user-friendly with features, attractive images and clear navigation.

Website programming using programming languages ​​such as Java, PHP, JavaScript…

Mobile app Development

Mobile developers create apps for mobile devices. The level of complexity is more than web development. The mobile app development will depend on the operating system. Each operator will suit different applications.

2.2. Key technologies

Web Development

HTML

This is the key to web development, all web development must contain HTML because HTML is the basic building block of web pages. HTML, or (Hypertext Markup Language)’s purpose is to specify the format and layout of the content of a web page. HTML consists of a series of tags that define sections and elements of a web page.

A web browser will parse the HTML and combine it with CSS and JavaScript to display the content of the web page.

CSS

Before CSS appeared, HTML was used to specify the format of a web page, how to make HTML formats more stylish and beautiful?

The problem here is how to change the style of a web page – for example, how to change the color of different “buttons”? HTML will have to change a lot of places in the web application.

CSS was invented to solve these problems by clearly separating a web page’s content from its styling (sometimes there is still some overlap). CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can be linked to within a web page to define the style for that web page. A web application can bind to a set of CSS pages to set the style of the entire web application. Then if you want to change the color of a button you can just modify one CSS file and all the buttons for the entire web app will change accordingly.

JavaScript

When JavaScript first appeared, it was a new language used to do some very basic things on web pages, but JavaScript has evolved to quickly play a more central role in web development. This is the heart of a web application, JavaScript is a fully functional dynamic language that can be executed directly in a web browser.

JavaScript makes web pages more interactive and enables the functioning of websites and their content.

Rendering: Server-Side

Server-side rendering simply means that the pages are built entirely by the logic on the server. So, with server-side rendering, most of the application’s logic “lives” directly on completely on the server.

Client-Side Rendering

Client-side rendering means that a web page’s content is built in the browser—via JavaScript—rather than on the server.

With client-side rendering, you can mostly think of a web server providing an “application” to the browser and the browser doing that internally to render pages, generate navigations, and request additional data. data from the server.

Behind the scenes, JavaScript is being used to create and manipulate DOM elements and even produce the HTML or CSS that is part of a web page or in this case a web application.

Client-side rendering renders content more seamless to the end user because there’s no need to send requests back to the server to render new pages, just a request for more data, then data. that will “plug in” to the dynamic site.

Mobile app Development

There are two main approaches to creating a mobile app: native and cross-platform. And a third evolving way – the progressive approach.

Native app development is creating independent apps for each mobile platform. Therefore, the company needed to develop one app for iOS and another for Android. The applications will then be uploaded to platforms such as the App Store or Google play. These are the advantages of native apps

• Advanced design options.
• Support for all smartphone features, including in-app purchases, access to location services or the camera, notifications, and priority updates.
• The interface is fast, responsive and reliable.

Twitter, Waze, and Pokemon Go are good examples of native apps.

Cross-platform development of mobile applications is the creation of a common codebase for two platforms, with additional code translation on each operating system through an intermediary layer. These are the advantages of cross-platform apps

• A single codebase that is single and works correctly on all platforms, allowing us to simplify logic and avoid possible errors.
• Reduced price and coding time if you don’t need platform-specific guarantees. The logic will be simple and the user interface will be minimalist.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) bring together the best of mobile web and native apps. The advantages of Progressive Web Apps

• No need for an intermediary (store).
• Development costs are lower than when using classical methods.

Read more: Top 10 mobile app development frameworks

2.3. Career scope

Web Development

Not only creating websites, developers need to manage and keep the web in optimal condition. Most businesses need a web developer to reach customers, build a better brand image and increase sales.

As a matter of fact, good web developers will know how to manage SEO websites, optimize website content for mobile devices.

Mobile app Development

The demand for mobile application development is increasing day by day. Businesses are also paying more attention to mobile applications in order to reach customers more easily. Whether developing applications on iOS or Android platforms, there are always huge job opportunities for you.

III. Conclusion

We all know that it is very important to appear when customers have a need. For users to be able to instantly connect to your business in the fastest time is still a top concern for all businesses. Therefore, businesses must constantly update, constantly develop, explore, but also develop themselves to meet the increasing needs of users.

If you want to develop a comprehensive website or mobile app for your company, then you need to partner with an experienced web development company. Pando is a leading software development company that provides one-stop service. So let’s contact our experts to figure out what values we can bring to you and your business.

Read more: 4 tips to choose the right Web Development Company