More and more desktop applications are popping up across the internet. They’re available to users through the browser in the form of web applications. In a business, context software-as-a-service has also established itself as a model for licensing. Web applications are available for customer relationship management, product management, newsletters, project planning, recording of employee time and attendance, and financial accounting. In particular, small enterprises benefit from demand-oriented billing models and a central online position. This reduces maintenance and administration costs and provides maximum flexibility by independent platform and device.

What is Web framework?

A framework is a structure of a program that is used as the basis for software development. If a developer wants to create new software, starting from scratch every time doesn’t make any sense. Numerous standard software development functions offer tried and tested solutions in program codes format. Classes are usually used in object-oriented programming and these act as blueprints for the development of software objects.

Usually, a framework represents a collection of different co-operating classes and thus determines the basic design structure of any software developed based on the framework. If a frame is used as a basis for a web application, it is referred to as a framework for web applications. Web frameworks should provide an easy to maintain a simple, clear structure that allows developers to create powerful web applications in a short space of time.

Advantages of web frameworks

• Web frameworks are used to reduce the time and cost of software development
• This mainly refers to basic features such as database connections, website templates, caching methods, and security features that are provided by frameworks as prefabricated code modules. Thus, the development effort is limited to the specific program code of a new web application
• Web frameworks are offered as free software, there are usually no purchase costs
• Frameworks promote the generation of clean source codes since developers can rely on tried and tested building blocks for standard features

Classification of web frameworks

• Single-page and multi-page approaches
• Server centric and client-centric web frameworks
• Action-based vs. component-based web frameworks

Selecting a web framework

Since frameworks have a big influence on the web application’s features and design possibilities as well as on the workflow during development, the work process usually starts with selecting the appropriate program framework. On the one hand, it is important to consider the planned software project as well as prior knowledge.

Key questions have to do with the type of application and the architecture you want. Both aspects directly affect the operation and user-friendliness of web applications.

It is useful to have already existing coding language skills and to have available the required infrastructure before you start searching for the appropriate web framework. Especially for well-known programming languages such as PHP, Java, or Python, there is a wide choice of well-documented web frameworks. Ruby’s popularity in web development is due mainly to the popular web framework Ruby on Rails. Web frameworks that are client-centered typically rely on the JavaScript scripting language.