Web Service vs Web Application

Question

I know this is an old question and must have been answered hundred times already, but I am not able to find a satisfactory response as yet.

I am creating an applicat

Answer 1

Web services dont always have a UI. They are normally API's using JSON, can also be SOA type using SOAP and XML primarily, can also be sockets, and servers and other micro web services, etc..

Web applications can be put together many ways. There are several ways to create your application by orchestration of multiple web services, and a separate gui to control them which ties into these services. The other way which does not use services is to procedurally embed code into your UI interface app, or even better, make an Object Oriented application which has its own services separed in the Model later, which the controller access, and has its own view as a GUI which access the services in the back end, or even more complicated apps that pass A2B, B2B, B2C services from some GUI.

Services dont always have a GUI, they can have a CRUD to maintain the data, but once you start to have these types of features, it becomes an application in its own right. The services are applied to something greater than themselves. this applying creates your application. It has to have a purpose. Normally it takes more than one blind service to complete your applicatoin, and there is some kind of interface.

If you just blindly send a uri request to your service, and it blindly sends back json, that's a service. Whats blindly sending this? If you, then not an application. If some sort of crud, then its becoming an application, the crud is a GUI for accessing the services, and as a whole, its a data management application system. Now if you put a layer on the front to demonstrate this data in website fashion, you now have a product to display this data, a product to manage it, and the data which is the real product, and which is accessible via the web service, its now a full on application. Your endeavour at creating this becomes your application.