A Single Page Application (SPA) refers to a modern web application that can load its sections dynamically as required, rather than traditional full-page loading. It requires the combined use of several frontend technologies to build an SPA. Development of such applications are on the rise due to the performance and advantages over traditional websites.
Features
- Native-like View
- Dynamic Rendering
- Interactive
- Flexible caching
Development
Developing a Single Page Application is more of a frontend-battle than a backend development. To speak frankly, JavaScript has taken the lead in producing Single Page Applications by all means. These are the frameworks and technologies that are intensively used to develop SPAs:
- Frameworks: AngularJS, ExpressJS, MeteorJS, React, VueJS
- Technologies: Ajax ,CSS, Java Applets, SSE, WebSocket, WebRTC
- Data Handling: HTML, JSON, XML
Architecture
The working of an SPA differs from a traditional web application. At first, the client browser sends an initial request to the server and thus receives a resource or HTML in response. Next, each time the client needs to send any request to the server, it implements AJAX and the server responds to the client browser with real-time JSON data. This is how only the requested section gets dynamically updated in SPAs.
Pros
- Faster loading
- Dynamic updating
- Less use of resources
- Instant response to actions
- Suitable for real-time communication
- Offline activity
- Throughput
Cons
- Not quite SEO-friendly
- Initial load might take longer
- Incompatible with Google Analytics (as that requires full-page loading)
- Vulnerable to attacks
Real-world Examples
A well number of technology giants have successfully implemented the SPA technology. Some of the famous SPA sites that we use on a daily basis are:
- Gmail
- Google Drive
- Trello
- WhatsApp Web
Conclusion
Once SPAs achieve the ability to be crawled and indexed properly by search engines, they deserve to have a bedrock position in the web development race.
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