DApps vs Traditional Apps: Key Differences & Advantages

Imagine ordering a ride using an app where you don’t need to trust a company with your data or money. That’s the promise of dApps, a growing alternative to the traditional apps we use daily. But how do they truly compare?

In the world of software and applications, there are only two main kinds of apps: centralized and decentralized. They are both inherently the same, but differ in the way they process data in the background.

In this blog, we will answer everything related to dApps and traditional apps and break down their key differences that set them apart.

What are Traditional Applications?

Any traditional application is a centralized app at its core, which is an application that is constructed utilizing a unified architecture. They are integral to our daily lives, from food delivery and shopping apps like Amazon to hailing rides with Lyft. 

Any user can download a copy of the app by sending a request to the centralized server on which these apps are hosted and receiving information from the cluster of these servers. Recently, these centralized applications have raised many eyebrows and concerns regarding data privacy and how they manage it.

Advantages of Traditional Apps

Traditional apps’ centralized architecture has several benefits that make them incredibly practical, scalable, and user-friendly.  The main key advantages of conventional applications are listed below:

High Performance and Speed Optimization

Traditional apps are hosted on centralized servers, often located in optimized data centers with high-performance computing capabilities. This setup provides them with faster responses with minimum delays, enabling an optimal user experience, which is important for real-time applications such as video streaming and gaming.

Wider Market Reach and Accessibility

Conventional applications can be found on already established app stores like Google Play and the Apple App Store. The advantages of such platforms, along with their features, allow these applications to acquire and retain users more efficiently.

Strong User Support and Customer Service

Traditional applications, being the product of centralized apps, usually have a wide array of customer support options, including chatbots, live support, help desks, or email support. This is of great convenience to users, especially while resolving minor difficulties, and it greatly enhances their overall experience and reliability.

Easy Maintenance and Updates

With centralized systems, the developers possess absolute control over the application’s backend. This enables them to easily respond to an urgent update, security patch, or bug fix. From the users’ point of view, there is effortless updating as there is either an automatic update mechanism or the update is retrieved from app stores.

User-friendly Interfaces and UX Design  

Conventional applications enjoy the benefits of well-established development ecosystems, especially the focus on usability. Both designers and developers can create attractive and mobile-friendly designs that are supported by extensive user testing, feedback collection, and stable features on different devices.

Limitations of Traditional Apps

Even though traditional applications rule the digital landscape and deliver comfort, they have some disadvantages that are getting harder to overlook:

• Data Privacy Issues

Traditional applications typically demand users’ personal details, which then get stored on the application provider’s centralized servers. This creates an obvious risk of misuse or improper access. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal serves as the most well-known example where an app permitted to harvest user data for legitimate reasons collected more data than needed. The case serves as an example of the risks associated with centralized systems.

• Single Point of Failure

Due to the nature of apps and how they function with servers, any sort of technical malfunction, cyberattack, or even whiteout can make the entire app unavailable for use. A simple example would be a server crash where the users of an application are not able to access it for a period of time. This creates fragility with the dependence on a single central system.

• Risk of Censorship and Bans  

With centralized platforms, a single company controls its ecosystem. This means the company can ban your account or restrict your access, even for no reason. The users do not have any options if they are locked out of their accounts, money, or files.

• Intermediary Dependency for Making Payments

Most legacy applications depend on banks, payment processors, or even app store operators to make transactions. This leads to extra fees, delays, and, in some cases, participation constraints. To illustrate, banking or international sanctions may lead to the exclusion of specific users or regions.

What are dApps?

Any applications that run on a decentralized network, such as blockchain or a peer-to-peer network, instead of on a single computer network, are known as dApps. DApps are open-sourced, transparent, and distributed on many nodes. This means that no single entity controls or affects them in any way.

Due to their distinct structure, dApps have evolved through multiple stages, progressing from basic payment systems to intricate ecosystems that include decentralized governance, gambling, finance, and NFTs. This development demonstrates several industries that have adopted dApp, rather than merely crypto.

Advantages of dApps.

DApps offer a wide variety of advantages, especially when compared with traditional applications. Some key benefits of dApps are:

• Zero Downtime  

The most notable advantages of decentralized applications (dApps) are their ability to operate with no downtime. For instance, their operation is not hindered by a centralized server. dApps run on distributed networks such as blockchain. This means that not only is the operation highly reliable, but it is also resilient. Even with the failure of one network node or server, dApps continue functioning without any interruptions.

• Enhanced Security 

Security is another major strength for dApps because data in a dApp is spread across multiple nodes rather than stored in a single location; it becomes much harder for hackers to compromise the system. Even if one part of the network is compromised, the dApp will continue to run through other nodes, all thanks to the decentralized architecture.

• Transparency in dApps

Most dApps embrace transparency as part of their core. They use open-source code, which allows for easy access, making auditing and verifying the application’s functionality effortless. This kind of transparency builds trust because users are confident that no undisclosed features, data harvesting, or unfair algorithms are in effect behind the scenes.

• User Empowerment

The other benefit to highlight is user empowerment. Users enjoy complete control over their data, virtual identities, and digital assets in decentralized apps. They don’t need to depend on any central authority or middleman, which removes the risk of account suspensions, data theft, and arbitrary changes to service conditions.

• Censorship Resistance

dApps are inherently resistant to censorship as it is nearly impossible for any one entity, agency, or country to obstruct, change, or disable the app as a result of it being decentralized. This makes dApps especially valuable in regions where free access to information or financial services is limited by restrictive policies and sanctions.

Challenges of dApps

Despite the fact that they offer user control, security, and transparency, there are many common dApp development mistakes and a number of obstacles that prevent their broad use:

• Issues with Scalability 

Decentralized applications (dApps) often operate on blockchains such as Ethereum, which has a capped transaction throughput rate, meaning that they can process only a limited number of transactions per second. At times of peak high demand, this frequently results in network congestion, slower transactions, and delays in executing smart contracts. Unlike traditional applications, this poses a greater challenge for dApps when attempting to function on a larger scale in real time.

• High Gas Fees

Interacting with dApps usually requires payment of “gas fees,” which are used to approve and log transactions on the blockchain. Based on the activity of the network, these charges can surge and make even the basic activities, such as asset trading and the sending of tokens, very costly.

• User Experience Challenges 

Unlike conventional applications that are refined over the year with an intuitive interface, decentralized applications (or dApps) require the management of digital wallets. This includes the protection of seed phrases and navigating unfamiliar blockchain interfaces. For users who are new to the platform, this learning curve can serve as a significant barrier to entry.

• Unclear Laws and Regulations  

Decentralized apps operate in a decentralized environment, so regulators and governments are still working to understand how to regulate them. In certain jurisdictions, the lack of clear regulations or the presence of stringent regulations with regard to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies pose challenges to the developers and the users.

Key Differences Between dApps and Traditional Apps

Feature	Traditional App	DApp
Control	Managed by a single firm or authority	Operates on a decentralized network with no single owner.
Data Storage	Data is stored on centralized servers.	Data is replicated across multiple community nodes.
Security	Susceptible to hacking and data breaches due to centralized storage.	Resilient to hacks and data breaches due to a distributed architecture.
Transparency	The code is closed-sourced, meaning that the public cannot examine or audit it.	The open-source nature of dApps’ code allows anybody to view and audit it.
Censorship Resistance	It can be restricted or even shut down by the authority.	Resistant to censorship: harder to block or ban.
Ownership	Companies control the ownership of user data, accounts and assets.	Users have full control over their information and assets.
Interoperability	Limited, harder to integrate with other apps.	Designed to interact with various apps and blockchain.
Real-World Examples	Uber, Amazon, PayPal, and Netflix	Uniswap, Aave, OpenSea, and Axie Infinity.

Bottom Line

Both dApps and conventional apps have their distinctive advantages and disadvantages.  Through decentralization, dApps offer unparalleled transparency, security, and user control, while traditional applications excel in speed, accessibility, and user experience. 

Decentralized solutions will continue to be in greater demand as users and organizations place a higher priority on privacy, trust, and creativity.

Convinces? So, are you now thinking about developing a dApp? Technoloader can take your concept and build a scalable solution that is sustainable for the long term.

Reach out to us now!