Single-Page Vs Multi-page Applications: Which is Right for Your Business?

Several business owners are switching to single-page apps as the go-to option as they search for more productive and economical ways to satisfy their client’s expectations.

Single-page applications are gaining widespread popularity and save users’ time by eliminating the waiting time when pages refresh and they also give developers shorter development cycles and more maintainable code.

As a result, companies can lower their maintenance and deployment expenses while also increasing customer satisfaction.

Through this blog, we will provide a comprehensive view of single-page applications with their benefits, usage, and popular examples, analyze their acceptance in the growing digital environment, and how they are different from multi-page apps.

What is a Single-Page Application (SPAs)?

A single-page application (SPA) is a web application (mobile/desktop) with only one webpage that loads only one HTML page and keeps updating it dynamically based on the user’s interaction.

Users can access and utilize single-page apps without having to open and load entire web pages like native multi-page apps on a web browser, providing a seamless user experience and eliminating any waiting time for reloads for the users.

Single-page apps are swift and highly responsive, enabling them to compete in performance with native desktop apps, making them quite popular among users as well as developers since it offers lower development costs, high security, swift debugging, and portability.

The Architecture of Single-Page Applications

A single-page application behaves like a conventional website from the outside. The user engages the same way when they view HTML with buttons and images. But things are extremely different in the background.

Single-page apps have links to JS files in addition to some placeholder items. Their heart and soul are these JavaScript files. After being loaded, they request content from the server and deliver it back, updating the HTML in the browser to produce a useful web page.

When you request a web page, the server sends an HTML file to the browser. In a SPA, the server only sends an HTML file in response to the first request; JSON data is sent in response to subsequent requests.

A single-page app rewrites content on the current page instead of the initial load page, preventing page reloads and eliminating waiting time. Single-page web applications that dynamically load content feel like mobile or native desktop apps, providing a natural and seamless user experience.

How Single-Page Apps Work?

SPAs keep all application code in a single, cohesive project instead of having several pages scattered across various files. Since there aren’t any needless requests to an API or the server itself, developers can update their applications more quickly as well as end users’ performance.

What are Multi-Page Applications?

Multiple-page applications or MPAs are websites with several pages embedded and function in a “conventional” manner. Every time a user clicks on one of these apps’ many links, the pages are loaded. Such applications are really a collection of independently created web pages. The majority of websites you’ll encounter online are multi-page apps, and you may come across countless links to them that direct you to various pages.

Most E-commerce websites and blog pages are multi-page apps. Popular examples of MPAs include eBay and Amazon.

Here’s a demonstration of MPAs work. 

Single-Page Applications vs Multi-page Applications: What’s the Difference?

Sometimes you might be confused about whether to consider multi-page apps or single-page apps for your development project. A multi-page approach is traditional that allows the creation of feature-rich, vivid applications with various categories, like an e-commerce store, whereas a single-page approach builds swift and responsive apps like mail or social media apps.

We’ve outlined some basic differences between single-page and multi-page applications to help you make a better decision.

3 Popular Single-Page Application Frameworks For 2023

Here are some popular single-page app development frameworks you can consider for your next development project in 2023.

React

In today’s highly evolving digital environment, features like scalability and adaptability are increasingly essential in any application, making it critical for creating an effective single-page application.

React is a fantastic framework for developing SPAs because of its swiftness and flexibility, thanks to stand-alone libraries. It utilizes Virtual DOMs and component-based architecture, allowing easy maintenance, monitoring, and updating.

Here are some other features of React that make it a suitable choice for single-page application development.

• High-performance
• Lightweight design
• Supports SoC (Separation of concerns)
• Follows the object-oriented paradigm
• Supports JSX – enabling HTML code rendering using JavaScript

Dropbox, Reddit, Instagram, and Asana are some popular organizations that leverage React development.

Angular

While developing single-page applications, performance must be the highest priority since unresponsive SPAs and delays can turn away your customers. You can achieve high performance by choosing Angular are your framework for single-page app development.

Angular single-page apps are cross-platform and support data binding and component routers, creating high-performing and swift single-page applications and enabling quick development with minimized coding.

Here are other features of Angular development that make it a preferred single-page app development framework:

• Supports caching, testing, and debugging
• Supports dependency injection
• Eliminates DOM manipulation with two-way data binding.
• Zero code dependencies

Popular tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and PayPal leverage Angular to develop single-page applications. Learn more about how you can supercharge your development with Angular.

Vue.JS

Vue.JS is best suited for single-page web app development when the right combination of Vue.JS tools and libraries and used. It is said to be the best of Angular and React with various features like-

• MVVM architecture that eases the handling of Handling HTML blocks for two-way communication,
• Easy addition of State Management and Routing
• React-like components and Virtual DOM, making it fast
• Two-way data binding and directives, making it reactive
• Small in size (18kb to 21kb) and simple to download

Major firms like Facebook, Adobe, Netflix, and Xiaomi use Vue.js on their websites. Click here to learn more about Vue.JS development and tools.

Advantages of Single-Page Applications

Here are some benefits of using single-page applications to interact with your customers.

Caching Capacity

SPAs only make a single server request for data. When an internet user’s connection improves, site data can be accessed by the server if they have a bad connection.

Additionally, even though the SPA is a landing page and only downloads the data once, the browser will frequently check to determine whether the cached data has changed. Asynchronously retrieving anything that updates is how applications work.

Faster loading speeds

When loading new content, SPA sites load it all at once rather than necessitating the request for more HTML pages from the site’s design. This eliminates back and forth. Rapid access to all website features and processes is made possible by JSON’s increased speed and efficiency.

A SPA can also make switching between sites faster due to caching and fewer data loads. Only relevant information is transmitted back and forth. Even if a user needs the submitted data, the program will only retrieve the portions that are still needed. So, compared to MPAs that retrieve pages upon request, the entire process is quicker.

Ease of Creating and Debugging

Because they only require one HTML page, SPAs are quicker to develop and easier to debug in a browser thanks to the use of strong frameworks and technologies like React, Angular, and Vue.

Cross-Platform Support

SPA serves as an example of a cross-platform strategy. The developers who run across browsers employ a single codebase to make it function on several operating systems and browsers. Due to the adaptive app layout’s compatibility with devices of all sizes, helps create a fantastic user experience.

Enhanced User Experience

Additionally, single-page applications provide a better user experience. To find the data they desire, MPA users must browse through links and menus, whereas SPA users merely need to scroll. SPAs are especially well-suited to mobile settings because of this characteristic.

Additionally, a SPA makes it possible for consumers to browse websites even with subpar internet connections, and it is frequently simpler to interact with a SPA from any device. Due to the reuse of page elements, the experience doesn’t require a page refresh, and navigating is often quicker.

Cost-effective Development

The server doesn’t need to use a lot of resources in this situation. The development of numerous layouts on the server side is not the primary priority for SPAs. Instead, the emphasis is on sending and receiving data effectively through APIs.

Offline Support

SPAs use less bandwidth because just a one-page load is required. No matter the internet speed, SPAs are practical to use and can be employed in locations with slow connections. 

Since the program only needs to ask the server for data once during the initial download, it also offers caching capabilities. In light of this, even when a user is offline, a webpage can still be accessed even with a weak internet connection.

Drawbacks of Using Single-Page Applications

No Back Button Option

Finally, when browsing a website, internet users regularly click the “back” button. Reverting to a single-page app eliminates them from the app or website, which is annoying and could even be a turnoff for users.

Website Statistics

SPAs affect the precision and utility of website traffic data, which is another problem. It can be difficult to establish which websites or content are most popular with SPAs because you just have a page to compare it to. For instance, Google Analytics gathers data on each page that users download from a website.

The default Google Analytics tag must be explicitly configured to measure activity on SPAs and page views.

SEO Issues

Having just one page as opposed to several pages can hurt your SEO because JavaScript must be handled by search engine crawlers rather than HTML. Only Googlebot is capable of rendering JS pages, but SPA can still produce quality rendering; it’s simply a little difficult.

To lessen SEO friction, one can employ feature detection, pre-rendering, and server-side rendering.

Initial Slow Loading in Some Cases

Initial processing takes longer in SPAs since the JS volume is significantly bigger. A mobile browser can also significantly slow down the loading of an app because it needs to evaluate and understand the JavaScript data, especially if the processor in the smartphone isn’t powerful.

5 Popular Examples of Single-Page Apps

Here are some examples of single-page applications that we often use.

Netflix

Netflix is a popular streaming platform created with React framework to avoid any delays in the streaming experience. It leverages SPAs to broadcast huge data amounts to several users on the platform and loads new data only upon the user’s new request, making it swift. 

Facebook

Facebook is a popular social media platform built on React that boasts millions of users. It has various features and functionalities like image posting, story sharing, video posting and sharing, and direct messaging.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a popular online writing tool built on the Vue.js framework that checks your spelling and grammar in real-time with extensive SAP capabilities and AI. It enables users to leverage its features to Google Docs or Microsoft Word for making their writing precise and clear.

Gmail

Gmail is one of the most popular single-page applications that does not require reloading emails when you open them since data gets loaded all at once from the servers. SPAs are also used for other Google Apps like Google Maps, Google, Drive, and Google Calendar.

Apple Music

Apple Music is a streaming app for music created with Ember with an effective user interface and smooth navigation to explore the database of numerous songs from different artists across the globe.

When To Use Single-Page Applications?

Although single-page apps are said to be the future of applications, they are best suited when you need apps with:

• Leveraged existing APIs to handle most app logic
• Dynamic platform with smaller data volumes
• Seamless user experience
• Real-time, quicker updates, and faster testing and deployment
• Offline-mode functionality where client-side gets updated for sync once connection gets re-established
• Functionality beyond traditional HTML forms
• Mobile applications with live updates like alerts, notifications, data streaming, and real-time charts
• Cross-platform functionality and consistency across various devices and platforms
• Rich client-side functionalities without reloading the page with every change.
• Social networks, SaaS platforms, and closed groups/communities

OnGraph Provides Innovative Web Development Services to Develop Engaging Single-Page Apps

Being customer-centric is the key to any successful strategy for expanding your business and establishing yourself as a successful player in the highly evolving, dynamic, and competitive digital world.

Also, the attention span of today’s users has shortened drastically, pressuring businesses to explore different approaches to provide high-quality, robust user experience, SPA is one of the approaches gaining widespread popularity.

Although the development process of single-page applications is easier, certain problems like an effective development team of JavaScript developers, software engineers, project managers, UX/UI designers, QA testers, and other factors like social sharing, SEO, and the choice of single-page development frameworks can prove challenging.

OnGraph is a leading web development company that provides industry-leading single-page app development services as well as multi-page app development services suited to businesses of every size across various industries worldwide.

To know more about our web development services, contact us or schedule an appointment for a 1:1 consultation.