Local App Vs. Web App, Which Is Better?

Application, a.k.a app: An installed program on your computer.

Web App: Any application that exists solely on the internet with no locally installed program.

Here’s some quick comparisons on which is better and why.

Image/Photo Editing

Local: Adobe Photoshop (paid), Paint Shop Pro by Corel (paid), GIMP (free), Picasa (free), Windows Live Photo Gallery (free)

Web: Picnik, FotoFlexer, Phixr, Pixer, Splashup – most have paid options, all are free to try, some completely free

Which is better?

The winner here is web, and here’s why:

1. Premium image editors like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro are way too complicated for most people, and costly. Furthermore they take up a tremendous amount of system resource to use.
2. Free editors like GIMP are very nice but once again is way too complicated for simple quick edits.
3. Gallery apps like Picasa and Windows Live Photo Gallery chew up a lot of system resource and have the problem of offering too little in the way of getting the photos the way you want them to look.
4. Online photo editors are the correct mix of powerful features and ease of use. In addition, they directly tie in to many different social networks and online image storage. For example, Picnik (arguably the best of the web image apps) is the default image editor for Flickr.

Document/Spreadsheet Editing

Local: Microsoft Office (paid), OpenOffice (free)

Web: Google Docs, ThinkFree

Which is better?

The winner here is local, and here’s why:

• Online document and spreadsheet editors still to this day takes way too long to load in the browser.
• Periodically, editing these types of files online will result in something “weird” happening with the interface (due to the fact the browser has to load so much data just to edit your stuff).
• Font choice with the web way is very limited.
• Doing simple things like adjusting page format from 8×11 to 6×9 can be a chore doing it the web way whereas it’s just a few clicks on local.

Email

The answer to which is better concerning local or web is actually both. Unfortunately there’s only one type of email that gets this hybrid right, and that’s Windows Live Hotmail.

Before you say, “No way! How can that be? Gmail and Yahoo are so much better!”

Not really.

The Windows Live Mail client is the only one that combines all of the following into one place that seamlessly syncs with the web version:

1. Mail storage
2. Address book
3. Calendar

There is no other mail that does this – free or paid.

Concerning mail storage, the client caches a local copy of the mail on the internet using the DeltaSync protocol. This is HTTP based, lightning fast and beats the crap out of POP and IMAP hands down. Every time the client syncs, you have an automatic backup of your mail. You don’t even have to worry about it.

Concerning the address book, the client address book syncs directly with the web version. Whatever you put local will be on the web and vice versa. It’s all automatic and said honestly extremely convenient. Yahoo and Gmail do not do this natively. Neither has their own client.

Concerning the Calendar, this is also auto-synched between client and web. Whatever is local is on web and vice versa just like the mail and address book.

No other email does what Hotmail and the Windows Live Mail  client does all at once. It is by far the best choice if you want the most options and seamless synching ability out-of-the-box.

If you don’t want to use Hotmail, the only other reliable method of email is local, even if using IMAP.

Instant Messaging

Local: AIM, Yahoo, Windows Live, Google Talk, etc. You know what these are.

Web: Meebo (there are others but Meebo is the best of the lot)

The winner here is web, and here’s why:

• Nobody saves chat logs anymore because nobody cares about that these days.
• You can connect all your IM services in Meebo whereas using a multi-protocol client is a pain and periodically doesn’t work.
• Meebo looks the same no matter what computer you use.
• Compared to multi-protocol clients, Meebo has the extra features the clients don’t, such as file transfers and easy webcam use.
• No big huge clunky IM client installations.

Even if you don’t want to use Meebo, using the web-based version of IM is always easier and faster.

If you want to try out the web-based versions of IM for yourself other than Meebo, they are:

• AIM: http://www.aim.com/aimexpress.adp (very slick – 5 stars!)
• Yahoo: http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/ (this really works nice by the way)
• Windows Live: http://messidog.live.com/ (doesn’t work that well)
• ICQ: http://www.icq.com/download/icq2go/ (would be great if anyone used it)
• Google Talk: Gmail. Just login to it, chat is on the left.