All Web Applications are Website but all Websites are not Web Application.
A website is informational.
A web application is interactive and informational.
What is a website?
A website is a collection of pages containing information that are accessed via the internet or LAN through a web browser (like- Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera etc.).
This can be just a collection of static HTML files and images, but nowadays that is pretty rare. Now, most of the websites are CMS(WordPress, Drupal, etc.) based and let you do basic interactions like newsletter subscription, providing contact information, search functionality.
For example, take a look at your favorite news website or blogs. These websites function perfectly without any input from you. Off course, you may comment, leave a review, or input your email in the newsletter box. But, that’s all, there will not be any more complex interactions.
What is a Web app?
A web app is a fully functional website which just not provide information but lets you interact with it and you can do a lot more than just click on links.
For example, all the following websites are web application:
- A Restaurant search website, where you can also log in, book an order or book a table apart from search. Restaurants also can list their business and may be manage their bookkeeping etc.
- There are service providing apps like Evernote, Basket, Google Drive, Asana. Where you can do some work, like — saving, notes, saving, links, creating document, or manage your tasks.
- There are e-commerce websites, online course websites, social platforms and so on.
Avoiding confusion
Ask yourself this questions —
- Will your website provide your customers/audiences mostly information about your company/services or they can login, see a dashboard and can do more interaction with you.
- If it is only informational, then ask how much dynamic the information will be, means how often the data will change?
Ask for help
If you need more help or right direction, reach out to good website design or development studios. You can ask us here mentioning your thoughts and we will help you.