Web vs Thick client

I think their is no doubt that we are in the middle (or is it the beginning only?) of a web application hype. When I lately faced the VMWare infrastructure web access I wondered what sense that makes to intentionally reduce performance for ... - for what? For accessibility? When I am at a client where I need access to a vmware I will take it with me - on my notebook or either (as colleagues of mine do) on a USB drive. I wonder if it was a technical guy or somebody from upper management taking this decision...

So I think there is some clarity required when it makes sense to design an application as a web application and here are the advantages:

1. Zero installation at client side.
   I think this is a big advantage of a web application and and from what I have seen drives many people to design the next application as a web app. I can see it from my own experience at Windows related support. On approximately 1 of 10 workstations there are troubles installing an application due to some "corruption" at the system or some other application conflicting. But this also depends on the application. For highly integrated applications (having intensive contact with OS or other components) I expect problems at 1 of 5 machines at least. So one reason for a web app is to avoid installation problems. - That is understandable, but guys, remember: That is an OS problem in reality. I very rarely have problems with installations under Linux. So for the zero installation we are in reality talking about a workaround for a Windows problem. - But wait: There are also the dummy users who don't really know how to install and those who don't want to bother with installation...
   
   
2. No updates at client side required.
   Whenever an application is installed there are also updates needed. Installation and updating is always work needed - in most cases somehow the Administrator and/or the user is involved and somehow handicaped or interrupted in his work. Yes, this is very bothering and for the vendor it requires also to maintain the appropriate infrastructure for downloading updates and (on Windows) the appropriate feature set at the client checking for the updates. The advantage of the web application here is that every user automatically is using the most current version as soon as the server has been upgraded.
   
   
3. Platform independency.
   Also a good reason to design a web application. But there are issues with different versions and types of browsers. So dependency from OS is traded in for dependency on the browser - which anyway seems to be the better choice...
   
   
4. Accessibility.
   New users can usually get access to the application very fast - they only need to surf to the particular site and they are there. This is a very important reason to design as a web application if it is important to get the masses and those who only use the application from time to time. Nobody wants to invest additional effort for installation of a software he or she maybe uses only once and maybe the next time only in a year from now. Although - if we look at Skype for example - if a software is worth using, many people install it also locally.
   

Note: Using Java or Python for instance you could also gain platform independence without the need of using web applications.

While it sounds very good anyway to use web applications there are also disadvantages coming with this architecture - well there is no advantage without disadvantage - this people tend to forget. There are also good reasons for using thick/fat clients:

1. Performance.
   Using a thick client data transfer can concentrate on the real data. All client logic and GUI is kept on the client. So performance of thhttp://it-tactics.blogspot.com/2008/11/web-vs-thick-client.htmle net traffic is in general better and servers do only have to deal with the server business logic and storage/retrieval of the data.
   AJAX and RESTful programming is a workaround to the problem of web applications that GUI and all the program code has to be transferred when the application is used.
   
   
2. GUI Features.
   Thick clients have more freedom (access to local data) and more possibilities of GUI design (available widgets, drag and drop for instance).
   
   
3. Available Offline.
   Thick clients can be used offline (if the application itself is not requiring the connection). For example data can be saved locally and can be transferred when you are online again. Only thing: The application has to support such an offline and online use (or synchronization respectively).
   
   
4. Privacy.
   You might produce or deal with data that in a whole or in parts should not be transferred to the server. This is one reason why I think that a local office software pack can never be replaced by an online office. I think that there is no company that wants to rely just on the provider to keep the company data save and private. As an alternative the company needs to provide the appropriate server environment to provide the office functionality. Another example is CRM - I think that people prefer have their contacts locally with them.
   
   
5. Different configurations and versions.
   Using web applications all users have the same version, this has already been mentioned. What in general is an advantage, can also be a disadvantage when you want only a few users to test a new version or when different users have different requirements. Firefox is a good example here: There is a basic product and a huge amount of available plugins. There will be nobody using all the plugins and Firefox would need a startup time of one hour and then hang up. Instead every user is using those plugins that are focused on the needs of the user optimizing productivity. This can only be done when every user is free to use an adapted version of the software.
   
   
6. Distributed computing.
   Using rich clients you split computing power between server and client. Some applications are either focused on decentralized purposes - like file sharing for instance. It also can be an advantage if the application hangs - because then in more cases only the client hangs and not the complete application at the server.

There are good reasons for both types of architectures. I can say that I use both - web clients and fat clients and both make sense according to the purpose of the application. It is important to think of how you want to implement your solution. Don't take the decision to implement your program as a web application or a thick client just because of a hype or by looking at it from a religious point of view!

Related posts: Your holy machine, About agile software development, Web application security, Pros and cons of cloud solutions.