Ask HN: Have we reached a tipping point when web apps are faster than native?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32905368

by julienreszka • 4 years ago

12 16 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I noticed that .NET apps we much less responsive than web apps. Is it only me or is it also your impression?

schoubey4• 4 years ago

.NET isn't native, doesn't it use the CLR? Even Java apps shouldn't be considered native as they use JVM.

True native is apps written in C/C++ or Rust that are compiled to run without a virtual machine. I haven't seen any webapps faster than native apps.

metadat2• 4 years ago

My definition for "native apps" are platform-specific binaries which run locally outside of a web browser.

Otherwise.. where is the line? you could claim that it must be handcrafted assembly in order to be native.

_0ffh2• 4 years ago

Native, quite reasonably, means the application is compiled to the CPU's native machine code. Take as an example the distinction between Java and native apps on Android.

schoubey4• 4 years ago

No one is asking for hand crafting, we are merely arguing that the absence of runtime environment which abstracts away from CPU's native instruction set. Hence I mentioned C, C++, Rust. Even GO and Haskell qualify as they are compiled to native instruction set of the CPU on which they run.

devonnull• 4 years ago

How many such apps have you noticed this with? And have you done any benchmarking or collection of data? Or is this all anecdotal?

julienreszka• 4 years ago

Only anecdotal. I'm asking to see if other people noticed and maybe have more data.

jcusch• 4 years ago

There are probably a few reasons it might seem like web apps are faster. A few that come to mind are perceived performance https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Performance/P... and optimization/offloading work to servers (caching, server-side rendering, APIs etc.).

dekhn• 4 years ago

It is not my impression. I write Qt apps and they are damn snappy compared to the web.

muzani• 4 years ago

I don't think it's possible. Native cuts closer to the hardware and web browsers are built on so much stuff.

I have noticed that mobile apps are replicating things like SPA for absolutely no reason, which actually lowers responsiveness. So it might be that. Perhaps there's a shift to writing code faster over performance.

johntash• 4 years ago

Anecdotal but I haven't noticed web apps to be faster than native apps.

However, I have noticed apps claiming to be "native" when in reality they are web browsers in disguise wrapped around some sort of web app.

Ask HN: Have we reached a tipping point when web apps are faster than native?

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