How to differentiate a Website and a Web-Enabled Application?

So here is the difference between a website and a web-enabled application. It is pretty easy but difficult too as a website is related to a particular page and web app is a portal where you get all the content and the information and you can easily view the web apps through browsers. It would seem that the line separating websites from web apps is anything but clear.

Here is one more improvised answer from Kerrek, who is a seasoned Stack Overflow user, gives the following difference:

A website is defined by its content
A web app is defined by its interaction with the user

According to him, the website has some content which is static which is used by visitors, and the applications which are web-enabled mainly depends on the visitor's interaction which usually requires programmatic user input and data processing. As per Kerrick, it is said that all the websites which are complex are changing the content on a programmatic backend but then also they are defined by their output. However, a web-based app is essentially a program that runs remotely and depends fundamentally on processing and a data storage backend.

Here are some more differences to see:

Websites are mostly information-based as the content is provided in the traditional sense to all the visitors, just basically the way BBC and many other sites do.
A web application is mainly for the conversational motive as users are allowed to interact and perform a various task like emails, document verification, and check the website's analytics. For example, Google web-based applications such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Analytics.
The seeming fact about both of them is that they are not at all exclusive. As websites have the applications with which users can interact easily. For example, a website of a university having information and the page of interaction for every individual.

Then it comes out that the Website is an anachronistic term from the early days of the internet when the notion of a dynamic application that can respond to user input was very narrow and uncommon. It is said that commercial websites were largely interactive brochures with the exception of hotel or airline reservation sites. Genia says that over time the functionality of these websites and their supporting technologies became more responsive and the line between an application that you install on your computer and one that exists in the cloud has blurred.

If still there is a big confusion then it is safe to assume that web-based applications require user input and data processing and generally lean towards performing a set of functions. A Web application can be looked at as a bunch of static HTML pages that provide content and information to a user and may have embedded apps as well.

Source: HOB

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