Client-Side vs. Server-Side Web Applications

Posted By: Riya Saini Published: 14, Jan 2024

Client-Side vs. Server-Side Web Applications

There are two parts to web applications: the client and the server. The “client” is a web browser such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome, etc. The "server" is a remote web application server that processes web requests and sends pages to the client. Code that is handled on the client's browser or on the webserver can be found in web applications. Web applications, on the other hand, have a disconnected architecture, which implies that the page displayed in the client's browser and a web or database server are never connected in real-time. The majority of the processing will take place on the server, rather than in the client's browser. When a database on a server has to be accessed, the web application sends the page back to the server, where server-side programming handles the request.

Server-Side Web Applications

When creating web apps, you can employ a variety of server-side technologies. Microsoft's ASP.NET is the most popular. Server-side code in ASP.NET is written in languages like C# and VB.NET and runs on the.NET Framework. In order to communicate with persistent storage, such as databases or files, server-side processing is used. The server will also process user input and render pages to the client. When a page is first requested and when it is posted back to the server, server-side processing occurs. User validation, data saving and retrieval, and website navigation are all examples of server-side processing. The page postback is a downside of server-side processing: it can add processing overhead, lowering performance and forcing the user to wait for the page to be processed and regenerated. The client must wait for the server to process the request and transmit the page back to the client after the page has been uploaded back to the server.

Client-Side Web Applications

Client-side scripts, unlike server-side code, are embedded in the client's web page and executed by the client's browser. Client-side scripts are written in a scripting language such as JavaScript and interact directly with HTML components such as text boxes, buttons, list boxes, and tables on the page. The client also employs HTML and CSS (cascading style sheets). The client's internet browser must support these languages in order for client-side code to work. Programming languages like C# and VB.NET, as well as the.NET Framework, are advantages of client-side processing in an ASP.NET web application. On top of the.NET framework, languages like C# and VB.NET provide all of the benefits of object-oriented designs, such as inheritance, implementing interfaces, and polymorphism. Client-side scripting has a number of advantages, including faster response times, a more interactive application, and less web server overhead. When page elements need to be modified without contacting the database, client-side coding is perfect. Dynamically displaying and hiding components based on user inputs is a nice example. Input validation is one of the most prevalent examples, and Microsoft's Visual Studio includes a set of client-side validation controls.

Client-side scripting, on the other hand, has the disadvantage of requiring additional time and effort to learn scripting languages, as well as requiring the client's browser to support that scripting language.