Best Web Application Development Examples: A Deep Dive into Real-World Applications

Deep Dive into Specific Web Application Examples For Beginners

Now that you have a better understanding of what types of popular web applications are out there, let’s pick a few prominent examples for examination. 

1. Netflix

With over 200 million paid users, Netflix, the giant movie streaming platform, is among the best web apps examples, largely due to its sophisticated microservices architecture. 

Simply put, Netflix’s microservices architecture consists of a network of interconnected services that power APIs and web interfaces. This ensures that the platform can run efficiently even under peak traffic.

What we like most about Netflix is that it allows one user to create separate profiles. And for each profile, Netflix’s algorithm suggests the movies and series based on each profile’s historical watching data. This level of personalization is one of Netflix’s key success factors.

Highlight features of Netflix

• Netflix’s machine-learning algorithms analyze your viewing habits to give you personalized recommendations
• The platform’s interactive capabilities offer you an interactive storytelling experience where you can make choices that influence the narrative.
• If you have kids, you can leverage parental control features to better monitor the content your children can be exposed to

2. Canva

Canva would be another household name we would love to bring to the table. With its extensive templates and user-friendly interface, Canva is now powering 170 million users worldwide to work on their design projects.

Canva’s front end is built primarily using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, with a heavy reliance on frameworks like React. This choice allows for dynamic and responsive design interfaces that are fast and fluid, crucial for the real-time design adjustments that Canva’s users frequently make.

On the back-end, Canva employs a combination of Ruby on Rails and Scala. Ruby on Rails offers a robust framework for building database-backed web applications that are secure and scalable, which is crucial for Canva’s extensive template and image databases.

Highlight features of Canva

• Canva provides thousands of templates across multiple categories, ensuring you can jumpstart your design project with ease
• The platform’s user-friendly interface allows you to easily move elements around, making the design process intuitive and quick
• You can collaborate in real time with colleagues or clients, making it easier to get feedback and make live edits
• For professional users, Canva offers a Brand Kit feature where you can store your brand’s colors, fonts, and logos to ensure consistency across all your designs

3. X (formerly Twitter)

This list of examples of web applications would be incomplete without X (formerly Twitter). X is a widely recognized social networking and microblogging platform where users engage through posting messages, known as tweets, and interacting via likes, retweets, and replies. 

In 2017, X introduced Twitter Lite as a Progressive Web App (PWA), enhancing its usability on mobile devices with minimal data usage and faster load times. (we will discuss about PWA a bit more in-depth below)

This shift to a PWA was a strategic move aimed at improving accessibility and performance, particularly in regions with slow internet connections. By leveraging the capabilities of a PWA, X ensures that users can enjoy a near-native app experience directly from their web browser without the need to download a traditional app.

Highlight features of X

• The platform functions as a Progressive Web App (PWA), optimizing performance for users with limited data or slower internet connections.
• X’s real-time updates ensure that users can see and react to global events as they happen, with instant notifications keeping them informed.
• Threaded conversations allow users to create, follow, and interact with extended discussion threads, facilitating easier tracking of conversations.
• Media integration supports seamless sharing and viewing of images, GIFs, and videos within tweets, enriching the interaction and content experience.

Web Application Development Trends and Best Practices

If you want to build a web application that is functional, robust, secure, and stable, make sure that you follow the web application development trends and best practices out there. 

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) combine the best features of web and mobile applications. They work offline, load quickly, and send push notifications. 

For example, Pinterest’s PWA led to a 60% increase in core engagements and a 40% reduction in user wait time. Starbucks’ PWA allows you to browse the menu and customize orders without an internet connection, improving your experience.

Serverless architecture

Serverless architecture lets you build and run applications without managing servers. This means you can focus on writing code while the cloud provider handles server management. 

The benefits of this cool trend include reduced operational costs and automatic scaling. Serverless architecture is ideal for real-time data processing and applications that need on-demand scaling.

API-first development

API-first development prioritizes the creation of APIs before other parts of the application. This approach ensures robust APIs that support various platforms and devices from the start, which we believe to be crucial for businesses needing to integrate multiple services or support to their web applications.

Security considerations

With the worsening of cybersecurity issues, remember to put security in mind when developing your web application. For instance, you can do regular security audits, use HTTPS for encrypted data transmission, keep your software updated, etc.

Performance optimization

Did you know that 40% of online users will leave a website that takes more than three seconds to load? Not to mention that speed is in the top 20 of Google’s key ranking factors. Hence, optimizing web application performance is a must, not a plus.

Minimizing HTTP requests, compressing images and files, using content delivery networks (CDNs), and implementing caching strategies would be a few techniques you can try.

Conclusion

That’s it! Now that you have a better visualization of how some web application development examples work, let’s contact Axalize team if you are interested in hiring someone to work on developing your web application