Website, web app and web-based system: how they differ
All three open in a browser and can look the same from the outside. The difference is in what they do: one informs, one lets people get work done, and the third runs a company's operation. Knowing which one you need changes the scope, the team and the conversation with whoever builds it.
Website: to inform and be found
A website is content to read: who you are, what you sell, how to reach you. Almost everyone who visits is anonymous, does not sign in and saves nothing. Its job is to get you found on Google and to make sure whoever arrives understands what you do and gets in touch.
It can have forms, a catalog or a chat, but what defines it is that the visitor consumes information; they do not work inside it.
What a web app is
In one sentence: a web app is software you use in the browser to work with your own information, not just to read.
A web app is a program used from the browser, with nothing to install. The user signs in, creates, edits and saves information, and what they do today is still there tomorrow. Webmail, online banking or a design tool in the browser are web apps.
Inside it has what any software has: a database, business rules, users with permissions and a server that decides what each person may do. The screen is only the part you see.
When a web app is sold by subscription to many companies, it is called SaaS (software as a service).
What a web-based system is
In Mexico, “sistema web” (web-based system) is what people usually call a web app built to run a company: the quoting system, the ordering system, the inventory or after-sales system. Technically it is a web app; the difference is who it is built for.
A web-based system is built around one company's processes and is used by its team, its customers or its distributors, each with their own view. “Web platform” is used for the same thing, usually when the system brings several of these pieces together.
The three, side by side
| Topic | Website | Web app / SaaS | Custom web-based system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Inform and attract | Let many users do a task | Run a company's processes |
| Who uses it | Anonymous visitors | Registered users | Your team, customers and partners |
| Sign-in | No | Yes | Yes, with role-based access |
| Data | Little (contacts) | Each user's own | The whole operation's |
| Ranks on Google | That is its job | Its public site does | Its public site does |
| Connects to | Analytics, forms | Payments, email | ERP, invoicing, inventory |
In practice they often come together: the public site is the front door and the system sits behind it, on the same data.
Three examples in production
- MenuFacil is a web app sold as SaaS: the restaurant signs up, builds its digital menu, prints its QR codes and pays a subscription. The diner scans and sees the menu on their phone, with nothing to install.
- Brosino is a web app that does not look like one: a 3D casino floor, with no real money, running entirely in the browser. A link is all it takes to join friends at a table.
- Kit Machinery is a web-based system: a machinery maker's commercial and after-sales operation, with a role for each department and a portal for its customers. Its public site is the front door to that same system.
Web app or mobile app?
A mobile app is downloaded from the App Store or Google Play; a web app opens from a link. For most business systems the web wins: it works on computers and phones from a single build, updates without asking anyone to download anything and does not depend on a store's approval.
A native mobile app makes sense when the product has to work offline for long stretches, use the phone's hardware heavily or live on the home screen of a mass audience that opens it every day.
There is a middle ground: a progressive web app (PWA) can be installed to the home screen from the browser and opened like an app, without going through a store.
Which one you need
- If you want to be found and contacted: a website.
- If you will sell a digital product to many customers by subscription: a web app (SaaS).
- If you want to take your operation out of Excel, WhatsApp and email: a custom web-based system, with its public site out front.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a website and a web-based system?
A website informs anonymous visitors. A web-based system is used by your team with a login to run the operation: orders, stock, quotes or customers, with saved data and per-person permissions.
What are examples of web apps?
Webmail, online banking, a customer portal, an online quoting tool or a digital menu a restaurant manages from the browser.
Is an online store a website or a web app?
Both: the catalog the shopper sees works as a website, and the cart, orders and back office are a web app behind it.
Does a web app work on a phone?
Yes. It opens in the phone's browser like any page, and if it is designed well it adapts to the screen and to touch.
Can I start with a website and add the system later?
Yes, and it is common. It helps if the site is built with what comes next in mind, so the system uses the same data instead of being a world apart.
Has your operation outgrown spreadsheets?
Tell us how you sell, quote and serve today. We'll tell you what we would build, and in what order.