Many companies today are implementing browser-based applications because of reasons (1) or (2) above and many are doing it just because its trendy. However, if you are deploying a browser-based application and (1) and (2) are not hard requirements, you should seriously consider the pitfalls of browser-based applications.

You have probably noticed that the same web page may look different depending on what browser you are using and even what version of the browser. In some cases a web page will not work properly unless you upgrade to the latest version of a particular browser. Likewise a web page may work fine with an older browser but not a newer one.

Now consider the company that deploys several browser-based applications. And then suddenly one of those applications comes out with an upgrade that requires an upgrade to the current standard company browser. If the company decides to upgrade the browser, there is a likely consequence that some features of at lease one of the browser-based applications will not work with the new browser. This leaves the company paralyzed. Do they upgrade the browser and risk breaking some of the other browser-based applications? Do they allocate extensive resources to testing the deployed browser-based applications to see if they will still work with the new browser before deploying it? Or do they stay entrenched on old technology?

Also the developers of browser-based applications have to make sure their user interface works with multiple browsers and versions of those browsers. This means it takes more time to develop and test each new feature, and every time a new version of a browser comes out this problem becomes worse. It also means that it takes more time and is more expensive to implement new features in browser-based systems. Consequently, web client systems will eventually overtake browser-based competitors with either lower price or better functionality or both.

Lastly there is the issue of performance. Web-based applications work by sending data over the internet or intranet. This mode of communication is relatively slow compared to network speeds and when the database becomes large there will be performance problems with many web-based applications. However, it is easy for a web-client applications to solve performance problems caused by data transmission simply by caching data on the client computers. Browser based applications can do some caching too, however, the cached data is generally stored in RAM and lost when the browser is closed. PR-Tracker on the other hand uses a cached database to improve performance. When PR-Tracker is closed the cache remains intact. Consequently, there are many actions PR-Tracker Web Client can do in a split second that may take minutes with a browser-based applications or may even be impossible.