web site vs web application

web-applications web terminology
Praveen Prasad picture Praveen Prasad · Dec 24, 2009 · Viewed 19k times · Source

I'm stumped trying to come up to a difference between a website and a web application for myself. As I see it, a web site points to a specific page and a web application is more of some sort of 'portal' to content and information.

But where I'm stuck is that a web application is still viewed through a browser (is it not?) and a website can still view content dynamically, making the line between web site and application pretty gray.

For instance, does a web site using ASP.NET or AJAX etc become a web application because it can retrieve data dynamically and asynchronously or would a website using PHP and a CMS be more of a web application because it forms the pages on request, based on the request of the client and its content in its databse?

Or maybe I'm totally wrong here - what differentiates between a web application and a website?

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