What is the difference between web services and web applications?
Web applications are accessed by users mainly by a web browser or a mobile device.
A Web service is any piece of software that makes itself available over the Internet. Think of a web service as a collection of methods which are made available by the web service creator for use by other applications. These other applications access these methods over the Internet and exchange data with the web services via XML format.
A wide variety of applications can benefit from a web service (not only web applications, but also windows applications or other web services & so on).
An example of a web service would be one which validates credit card numbers. Hence, another web application might make use of that web service through calling its methods. Another example of a web service is the .NET passport.
Hope this helps.
The W3C defines a Web service[1] as a software system designed to support interoperable Machine to Machine interaction over a network. Web services are frequently just Web APIs that can be accessed over a network, such as the Internet, and executed on a remote system hosting the requested services.
In software engineering, a Web application or webapp is an application that is accessed with a Web browser over a network such as the Internet or an intranet.
Web applications are popular due to the ubiquity of the browser as a client, sometimes called a thin client. The ability to update and maintain Web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity. Web applications are used to implement Webmail, online retail sales, online auctions, wikis, discussion boards, Weblogs, MMORPGs and many other functions.
References :
wikipedia
Definition:
Web Services; It is what Microsoft is trying to get people to do with Office. Instead of owning the application wholly on a CD or other storage media. You would use it from their web site. Kind of like playing an on-line web game. You do not own the software but the game site would own the software.
Web applications are like using PHP, SOAP, a MYSQL DATABASE that are built/Programmed into the page for a single purpose.
References :
Web applications are accessed by users mainly by a web browser or a mobile device.
A Web service is any piece of software that makes itself available over the Internet. Think of a web service as a collection of methods which are made available by the web service creator for use by other applications. These other applications access these methods over the Internet and exchange data with the web services via XML format.
A wide variety of applications can benefit from a web service (not only web applications, but also windows applications or other web services & so on).
An example of a web service would be one which validates credit card numbers. Hence, another web application might make use of that web service through calling its methods. Another example of a web service is the .NET passport.
Hope this helps.
References :