Do you need an app, or a web app?

“Can you build us an app?” is one of the most common requests a software studio hears from charities, mosques, schools and small firms. It is a fair request. People live on their phones, and an app feels like the modern way to reach them. But “app” covers two very different things, and the difference decides what you pay, this year and every year after.

Two things people call an app

An app-store app is downloaded from Apple’s App Store or Google Play. It is built for the phone, published under a developer account, and reviewed by Apple and Google before each release.

A web app is a website that behaves like an application. You sign in, do your work, and leave. It opens in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer, and there is one version for everyone. A parent portal, a donor area and a job booking system are all web apps.

A web app can also be added to the home screen. It then has its own icon, opens full screen without the browser’s address bar, and on current iPhones and Android phones it can send notifications to people who have added it. To the person using it, it looks and feels like an app.

What an app-store app really costs

The build price is the part everyone asks about. The running cost is the part that surprises people.

• Two stores, two sets of rules. Your organisation needs its own developer accounts with Apple and Google. Both check that the organisation is real, and that can take weeks before a line of code is written.
• A yearly rebuild you did not ask for. Apple and Google each raise their minimum technical requirements every year. An app that is not updated to meet them cannot publish updates, and in time it is hidden from people with newer phones. This work has to be done even if the app has not changed.
• Review. Every release waits for approval. Most pass in a day or two. Some are rejected for reasons that take a week of emails to resolve, and that week is rarely a convenient one.
• Store paperwork. Privacy labels, data safety forms, a way for users to delete their account, screenshots in set sizes, and policy changes that arrive by email with a deadline.
• Two things to maintain. Nearly every app also needs a system behind it where staff manage the content. That system is a web app. So an app-store app is usually an extra, on top of the thing you needed anyway.

None of this is a reason never to build one. It is a reason to be sure before you do, and to budget for the upkeep from the first day.

When an app-store app is the right answer

• You need the phone’s hardware in ways a browser cannot reach. Scanning with special equipment, Bluetooth devices, continuous location in the background.
• People must use it for long periods with no signal, and a lot of data has to be stored on the phone.
• Being found in the store matters. If strangers will search the App Store for what you do, you need to be there. If your users are your own members, parents or clients, they will get to you through a link you send them.
• It is used many times a day by the general public. At that point the polish of a native app repays its cost.
• You have the budget for the upkeep, every year, not only for the build.

When a web app is the better answer

• Your users are a known group: members, parents, donors, staff, clients. You can send them a link.
• The job is records and tasks: sign in, see my information, fill in a form, pay, download a document, get told when something changes.
• You want one thing to maintain, with changes that go live the same day, for everyone, with nobody’s approval.
• Your budget is for the system, not for two.

One honest limit: on an iPhone, a web app can only send notifications to people who have added it to their home screen, and that takes a moment of explaining. A short guide for your users, with two screenshots, is usually enough. If instant alerts to thousands of people are the whole point, weigh that carefully.

Five questions to ask before you commission anything

1. What will people do with it, in one sentence? If the answer is “see information and fill in forms”, you are describing a web app.
2. How will people first find it: a link from us, or a search in the app store?
3. What must work with no signal at all?
4. Who will pay for the yearly updates, and how much is set aside?
5. If the app-store version vanished tomorrow, what would our staff still need? Build that part first.

A note for mosques

If the aim is for your congregation to see prayer times, jamaat times and announcements on their phones, you may not need your own app at all. Joining a platform your congregation can already use will cost far less than building and maintaining one. We build and run Mosq, which does this for UK mosques, so we have an interest here and you should compare it with the alternatives.

Where we stand

We build web apps: portals and internal systems that work on every phone and can sit on the home screen. We do not build separate app-store apps for clients, because for most organisations we work with it is the wrong way to spend the money, and because we would rather tell you that before you spend it. Portal Starter is from £9,500 and Portal Core from £18,000, and neither needs an app store.

Prices in this guide do not include VAT. Tibyan Labs is not registered for VAT, so none is added at present.