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Web application is a collection of scripts The definition from the article "Penetration Testing for Web Applications (Part One)" (Jody Melbourne and David Jorm via Symantec). "A Web application is an application, generally comprised of a collection of scripts, that reside on a Web server and interact with databases or other sources of dynamic content. They are fast becoming ubiquitous as they allow service providers and their clients to share and manipulate information in an (often) platform-independent manner via the infrastructure of the Internet. Some examples of Web applications include search engines, Webmail, shopping carts and portal systems. Web applications typically interact with the user via FORM elements and GET or POST variables (even a 'Click Here' button is usually a FORM submission). With GET variables, the inputs to the application can be seen within the URL itself, however, with POST requests it is often necessary to study the source of form-input pages (or capture and decode valid requests) in order to determine the users inputs". An example HTTP request that might be provided to a typical Web application. Every element of this request can potentially be used by the Web application processing the request. The REQUEST-URI identifies the unit of code that will be invoked along with the query string: a separated list of &variable=value pairs defining input parameters. This is the main form of Web applications input. The Session-ID header provides a token identifying the client's established session as a primitive form of authentication. The Host header is used to distinguish between virtual hosts sharing the same IP address and will typically be parsed by the Web server, but is, in theory, within the domain of the Web application. Web application is a software application The definition below is from the article "Web Application Scanners: Definitions and Functions" (Proceedings of Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences). "The Web Application Security Consortium (WASC) defines a web application as “a software application, executed by a web server, which responds to dynamic web page requests over HTTP.” A web application is comprised of a collection of scripts, which reside on a web server and interact with databases or other sources of dynamic content. Using the infrastructure of the Internet, web applications allow service providers and clients to share and manipulate information in a platform-independent manner. The technologies used to build web applications include PHP, Active Server Pages (ASP), Perl, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Java Server Pages (JSP), JavaScript, VBScript, etc. Some of the broad categories of web application technologies are communication protocols, formats, server-side and client-side scripting languages, browser plug-ins, and web server API. A web application has a distributed n-tiered architecture. Typically, there is a client (web browser), a web server, an application server (or several application servers), and a persistence (database) server". A simplified view of a web application There may be a firewall between web client and web server. Source: samate.nist.gov/docs/wa_paper.pdf Web application is a program The definition below is from the article "Java Technologies for Web Applications" (Oracle Technology Network). "Web applications are programs that run on more than one computer and communicate through a network or server. Specifically, web applications are accessed with a web browser and are popular because of the ease of using the browser as a user client. For the enterprise, the ability to update and maintain web applications without deploying and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity. Web applications are used for webmail, online retail sales, discussion boards, weblogs, online banking, and more. One web application can be accessed and used by millions of people. Web applications are made up of many parts and often contain mini-programs, some of which have user interfaces, and some of which do not require a graphical user interface (GUI) at all. In addition, web applications frequently require an additional markup or scripting language, such as HTML, CSS, or JavaScript programming language.  A web application can be as simple as a page that shows the current date and time or as complex as a set of pages on which you can look up and book the most convenient flight, hotels, and car rentals for your next vacation".

If not using a Front-End Framework, then What? There are a few alternatives to using a front-end framework for building the user interface of a web application.  One option is to use vanilla or pure JavaScript and build the UI from scratch using just the core language features and APIs.  Another option is to use a library like jQuery, which provides a set of useful functions for working with the DOM and making AJAX requests. Here are a few more options for building the user interface of a web application without using a front-end framework: Server-side rendering. This involves generating the HTML for a web page on the server, rather than in the client's browser. This can be done using a server-side language like PHP, Ruby, or Python, and can be a good option for applications that do not require a lot of client-side interactivity. CSS frameworks. This type of front-end framework provides a set of styles, layout patterns, and design principles for building web interfaces. They are typically focused on providing a consistent look and feel for web applications, and can include styles for common UI elements such as buttons, forms, tables, and more. CSS frameworks can be a useful tool for building the visual aspect of a web application, and can be especially helpful for quickly prototyping or building simple applications. Static site generators. These are tools that can generate static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files from templates and data sources. They can be a good option for building simple websites or web applications that do not require a dynamic, real-time update of the content. No-code platforms. There are a number of platforms that allow you to build web applications without writing any code. These platforms typically provide a set of pre-built templates and components that you can customize and arrange to create your application. They can be a good option for non-technical users or for prototyping ideas quickly. Hybrid approaches. You can also use a combination of different tools and technologies to build the user interface of a web application. For example, you could use a static site generator to build the basic structure of the application, and then add some interactivity using pure JavaScript or a library like jQuery. JavaScript Front-End Frameworks vs pure JavaScript Why use a front-end Javascript framework? The most commonly used programming language is JavaScript. And the most popular front-end frameworks are JavaScript-based: React (officially, it’s a library), Angular, or Vue.js https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022 By using pure JavaScript instead of a front-end framework, a developer must create their own structure for organizing and implementing features in their applications. While this can be sometimes a more flexible approach, it can also be more time-consuming and require more effort to maintain the codebase as the application grows and evolves. Some key differences between JavaScript front-end frameworks and pure JavaScript include: Code reusability. Front-end frameworks often provide a set of reusable components so developers don’t have to rebuild them from scratch. React, for example, allows the use of reusable UI components, reducing development time. Conversely, pure JavaScript developers need to create their own code reuse mechanisms if necessary. Code maintenance. Front-end frameworks provide a consistent structure and set of conventions for organizing and implementing code to make it easier for developers to understand and work with code written by others, and reduce the risk of errors or bugs. Pure JavaScript developers must create their own conventions and patterns for organizing and implementing code. Easy-scalable functionality. Front-end frameworks provide out-of-the-box key features of every complex web application such as routing. Pure JavaScript developers must implement them manually. Performance. Front-end frameworks are designed to enhance the rendering and performance of the front end of web applications. React, for example, offers specific strategies for performance optimization. Pure JavaScript may not offer the same level of performance and scalability. Community and ecosystem. Front-end frameworks typically have a large and active community of developers and a wide range of resources and tools available, including documentation, tutorials, and third-party libraries. This can make it easier to find support and resources when working with a front-end framework. Pure JavaScript, as a core programming language, also has a large and active community, but it may not have the same level of resources and tools specifically tailored for building the front-end of web applications. Features of Front-end Frameworks Components Functionality Most frameworks have a reusable set of commonly-used components to construct a UI fast. For example, AuthorCredit component (React) can be used while building a blog or online magazine. It allows displaying a portrait of the author and a short byline about them for each article. And matAutocomplete component (Angular) is useful when you need to show a list of auto-complete options when the user tries to type something in the field. The possibility to quickly build and re-use custom UI components is a distinguishing feature of a modern front-end framework. matAutocomplete Angular component State Management State management is a crucial aspect of front-end development, as it allows components to track and update their own data values without the need for additional code.  A front-end framework's built-in state-handling mechanism makes this process easier by providing tools like the useState() hook or libraries like Redux, XState, and Mbox. These tools, given an initial data value, automatically keep track of and update that value as needed.  Here is an example of how state management is generally easier to implement using a front-end framework compared to using pure JavaScript. Consider a simple front-end application that displays a list of items, and allows the user to add and remove items from the list.  Using pure JavaScript, the developer would need to write code to handle the following tasks: Display the list of items. Add a new item to the list when the user clicks a "Add" button. Remove an item from the list when the user clicks a "Remove" button. Update the display of the list to reflect the current state of the list. To implement these tasks using pure JavaScript, the developer would need to write code to manually update the DOM elements that display the list of items whenever the state of the list changes. This would require a significant amount of code, and could be prone to bugs and maintenance issues. On the other hand, using a front-end framework like React or Vue, the developer can manage the state of the list in a more efficient way.  For example, the developer could use a state management tool provided by the framework to update the state of the list whenever the user clicks the "Add" or "Remove" button, and the framework would automatically update the display of the list to reflect the current state of the list. This can save a significant amount of time and effort compared to writing all of the code from scratch using pure JavaScript. Browser Events Handling In addition to monitoring ongoing state, front-end frameworks also react to events that occur in the browser. Examples of these events include closing the browser window, a web page finishing loading, a form being submitted, and errors occurring. The mechanism behind event handling can be described as follows: "listener code listens for the event to occur, and the handler code runs in response to it happening."   Some examples of such events include: Form events, such as "submit", "reset", "focus", "blur", and "change". These events are fired when a form is submitted, reset, or its elements receive or lose focus, or the value of a form element changes. Mouse events, such as "click", "dblclick", "mousedown", "mouseup", "mouseover", "mouseout", "mousemove", and "contextmenu". These events are fired when the user interacts with the mouse, such as clicking on an element or moving the mouse over an element. Keyboard events, such as "keydown", "keyup", and "keypress". These events are fired when the user interacts with the keyboard, such as pressing or releasing a key. Window events, such as "resize", "scroll", "beforeunload", and "error". These events are fired when the window is resized, scrolled, about to be closed, or an error occurs. Front-end frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.js provide a range of tools and libraries that can make it faster and easier to implement event handling for these and other browser events compared to using pure JavaScript.  For example, they provide declarative syntax, automatic event listener management, and reactive data binding, which can help the developer focus on the business logic of the application rather than on the low-level details of DOM manipulation. Here are some points in more detail. Declarative syntax Front-end frameworks provide a declarative syntax that allows the developer to specify the desired behavior of the application in a more abstract and concise way, rather than writing imperative code to manipulate the DOM directly.  For example, in the React example, the useEffect() hook is used to attach and remove the "submit" event listener to the form element in a declarative way, rather than using the imperative addEventListener() and removeEventListener() methods. Automatic event listener management Front-end frameworks can automatically manage the lifecycle of event listeners, attaching them when the component is mounted and removing them when the component is unmounted. This can help the developer avoid memory leaks and other issues that might arise from attaching and removing event listeners manually.  For example, in the Angular example, the HostListener decorator is used to attach the "resize" event listener to the window object, and the Angular framework takes care of removing the listener when the component is destroyed. Reactive data binding Front-end frameworks provide reactive data binding, which allows the developer to specify how the UI should change in response to data changes. This can make it easier to handle events that involve updating the UI, as the framework can automatically update the DOM based on the changes in the data model.  For example, in the Vue.js example, the "scroll" event listener is attached to the document object, and the Vue.js framework takes care of updating the DOM based on the changes in the data model caused by the "scroll" event. Client-Side Rendering Client-side rendering is often used to update parts of the UI without requiring a full page reload by using such concepts as, for example, Virtual DOM.  For example, if a user adds an item to their cart in an e-commerce application, the client-side rendering process could be used to update the display of the cart icon to show the correct number of items, update the cart page to show the correct list of items, and potentially update other areas of the UI as well (e.g., updating the total cost of the items in the cart).  The Virtual DOM is a lightweight in-memory representation of the actual Document Object Model (DOM) that is used to update the actual DOM in an efficient way. When a user interacts with a web application, the front-end framework compares the previous and current versions of the Virtual DOM and calculates the minimum number of changes needed to update the actual DOM. This process is called "reconciliation" or "diffing". By using the Virtual DOM, front-end frameworks can significantly improve the performance of a web application, as it reduces the number of costly DOM manipulations that need to be performed. This can be especially beneficial for complex front-end applications that require frequent updates to the UI. While pure JavaScript does not include the Virtual DOM as a built-in feature, it is possible to use pure JavaScript to implement the Virtual DOM concept. However, this would require writing a significant amount of code to handle the various aspects of the Virtual DOM, such as diffing and reconciliation, and could be time-consuming to implement and maintain. Form Processing Front-end developers have to create forms for almost every project. And it’s surprisingly tedious to do. The process involves a lot of repetitive work such as creating input elements, adding field labels, and help texts, field grouping, performing form validation, creating custom validation rules, modifying default validation messages, forms theming, and much more. Front-end frameworks have libraries that make form building and validating much easier. Here is an example of why form processing is generally better to do with a front-end framework compared to using pure JavaScript: Consider a simple form that allows a user to enter their name and email address, and then submit the form to send the data to the server.  Using pure JavaScript, the developer would need to write code to handle the following tasks: Display the form fields and submit button. The developer can use pre-built UI components provided by the framework to display the form fields and submit button. Validate the form input. The developer can use form validation tools provided by the framework to check that the name and email fields are not empty and that the email field is a valid email address. Display error messages if the form input is invalid. The developer can use the form validation tools provided by the framework to display error messages if the form input is invalid. Send the form data to the server when the submit button is clicked. The developer can use an HTTP library provided by the framework, or make an HTTP request using pure JavaScript, to send the form data to the server when the submit button is clicked. Display a success or error message depending on the server's response. The developer can use the framework's UI components and state management tools to display a success or error message depending on the server's response. Client-Side Routing There are also several reasons why using a front-end framework can be a better choice for implementing client-side routing than using pure JavaScript. Advanced features. Front-end frameworks usually provide a range of advanced features for client-side routing, such as route-level code splitting, lazy loading, navigation guards, transition animations, and more. These features can make it easier to implement complex routing scenarios and provide a better user experience for the application. Ecosystem. Front-end frameworks usually have a large and active community of developers, which can provide a wealth of resources, tools, and libraries for working with client-side routing. This can make it easier to find solutions to common routing problems and to integrate the routing mechanism with other libraries or APIs. Maintenance. Front-end frameworks often provide a unified and consistent API for working with client-side routing, which can make it easier to maintain the routing code over time. This is especially useful if the application has a large number of routes and requires frequent updates to the routing mechanism. Reusability. Front-end frameworks often provide reusable components that can be used across different routes, which can make it easier to build and maintain a consistent and coherent UI for the application. This can save time and effort compared to building the UI from scratch for each route using pure JavaScript. Errors Handling and Reporting Unlike the backend, frontend code doesn't run on a single platform but on dozens of browsers and device types. At the same time, users almost never report UI glitches, slow performance, and broken interfaces, they just leave with a bad impression. Businesses want their web apps to remain working even if a front-end error occurs, and, in the worst cases, show readable and understandable messages to users. The support team also should get the error code to resolve issues ASAP. It’s easier to handle and report front-end errors using appropriate frameworks. For example, libraries like React-Error-Boundary can help write less code for this purpose. Frameworks provide mechanisms like tracking errors centrally (mostly for unexpected errors) with error handlers and their functionality easily may be extended by third-party bug tracking and monitoring solution. With error handling and reporting tools, located centrally, developers may scale the app or modify the error handling through one file and update it globally. Facilitation of Tests Writing  Frontend testing focus on the validation of menus, forms, buttons, and other web application elements visible to end users. Tests check out how quickly elements load, what are their response times to user actions, and so on. Front-end frameworks have extensive testing tools with capabilities from unit to integration testing. Test coverage ensures your web software continues to behave in the way that you'd expect and gives you confidence in your UI code. Using a JavaScript front-end framework can facilitate test writing compared to using separate libraries or vanilla JavaScript or jQuery because it provides a structured and consistent approach to testing. Here is an example of how you might write tests for the login form using vanilla JavaScript or jQuery, and how this approach may not be as structured and consistent as using a JavaScript front-end framework. To test the login form using vanilla JavaScript or jQuery, you would need to manually create the form elements and add them to the DOM (Document Object Model). You could then use JavaScript or jQuery functions to simulate user actions and verify the form's behavior. This approach may not be as structured and consistent as using a JavaScript front-end framework, because you are responsible for manually creating and manipulating the DOM elements and handling the testing process yourself. This can make it more difficult to write and maintain tests, as you need to manage the details of the testing process manually. By contrast, using a JavaScript front-end framework such as React, Angular, or Vue.js provides a more structured and consistent approach to testing, as it includes built-in tools and features for rendering and interacting with components in a test environment. When to Use a Front-end Framework For building Single-Page Applications  Single-Page Applications are those ones that use an architecture where data updates and navigation occur without page reloading. For example, dashboard apps. The best way to build such applications, where rich interactivity, deep session depth, and non-trivial stateful UI logic are required, is by using front-end frameworks.  For building Server-Side Rendering Applications When the initial load performance for the app is absolutely critical or when your web app is sensitive to SEO, server-side rendering is applied.  For such cases, the front-end frameworks provide APIs that allow utilizing a server to generate an HTML page for users without the necessity to see the white screen, while the browser loads JavaScript files. Server-side rendering greatly improves Core Web Vital metrics such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). To speed up your site's performance even further, static-site generation techniques, also known as JAMStack, are used. Front-end framework helps pre-render an entire application into HTML and serve them as static files. Let’s build an interactive and responsive UI that your app users will love. Our front-end developers apply best practices to write top-quality code and deliver the look and functionality you expect rapidly and within a budget.

Real Business Cases of SaaS Web Development for Startups Business Case 1: Custom SaaS Training Software for eLearning Startup The US startup came to Belitsoft with a mission to train employees effectively by replacing costly and ineffective traditional eLearning methods with a personalized interactive web platform. The startup founder decided to develop an LMS from scratch due to previous unexciting and limited learning experience with a standard platform. Belitsoft’s dedicated developers offered сustom web application development services to create a unique interactive platform for the startup from scratch.  The development process included a discovery phase (to get a clear vision and scope of the project), content creation (by digitizing a hard copy), UX/UI design (to create an engaging conversational user interface), choosing a suitable tech stack, development, and software testing. All in all, the project's remote dedicated development team involved 8 dedicated programmers, designers, and testers in various stages, and allowed launching the MVP in 8 months.  Inspired by the capabilities of a new training platform, the startup founder is considering further software evolution with the help of Belitsoft (mobile version, Artificial Intelligence, etc). CASE STUDY: Custom SaaS Training Software for eLearning Startup Business Case 2: Custom SaaS EHR Development for a HealthTech Startup Our Client, a US-based company, decided to create a software product to automate manual tasks and boost the effectiveness of healthcare professionals. Due to the lack of in-house developers, the Client opted for software development outsourcing to get the necessary skills quickly and much cheaper than in the USA.  Belitsoft got the task to develop the MVP for a future EHR system from scratch. The Client didn’t choose off-the-shelf platforms because their customization would be expensive and difficult to maintain in the long run. To translate business needs into detailed technical requirements correctly, Belisoft started by assigning an experienced Business Analyst with proven expertise and deep domain-specific knowledge in the healthcare industry.  The development team chose the modern microservices architecture approach to develop a highly scalable healthcare software product with powerful functionality. Considering the specifics of the Healthcare domain, we applied the HIPAA-compliant server architecture proposed by Belitsoft to the Client to ensure the app compliance with HIPAA requirements. As a result of cooperation, a SaaS EHR platform with a simple-to-use UI was developed. It allows busy healthcare professionals to enable the accurate and efficient collection, systematization, and multi-faceted use of relevant clinical data. CASE STUDY: Custom SaaS EHR Development for a HealthTech Startup Business Case 3: Custom SaaS Marketplace Development for an Agritech Startup Our Client, the US-based startup, decided to enter the AgriTech market with a unique and helpful idea of connecting farmers and laborers through a marketplace app. The startup founder came to Belitsoft by reference from another business owner who used to work with our company and who recommended us as a team that takes responsibility and ownership over their work and does the job right, meeting the set-out deadlines and budget. The initial Client’s request focused on the idea and the functionality they expected. However, the startup team didn’t specify any technical requirements. For this reason, Belitsoft suggested full-cycle development services, including UX/UI design, business and technical consulting, and software testing. After agreeing on the details, our specialists started by mapping the idea to estimate the project cost. The next crucial step was to attract investors - and our designers created mock-ups for the project for this purpose. As a result, the startup managed to fundraise enough to proceed. Developing an MVP was the first milestone that would allow the business to release the app and start monetizing it in a short term. Then, we planned the second phase - further development after the app launch to enhance functionality. The MVP development and a series of extra features took 6 months. Thanks to a well-thought choice of tech stack (Laravel and React) with the availability of ready-to-use code, our software development team saved approximately 80-120 hours for the startup and lowered its development expenses. As a result, the Client received both web and mobile versions of the app for iOS and Android. After launching the marketplace app, the startup experienced 113% user growth. Now, it has got nearly 2,000 active users and the number is growing. CASE STUDY: Custom SaaS Marketplace Development for an AgriTech Startup  Business Case 4: Custom Chatbot and SAAS Web Platform for Marketing Automation Startup Our Client is the EU founder and CEO of a startup promoting a new approach to lead generation for businesses.  The business owner needed engineering resources with the skillset that would let him develop a human-like chatbot to convert website visitors to leads and a database app for storing these leads. He found Belitsoft via Google and chose us out of several companies due to “the most professional impression”, according to the founder’s words. The Client needed full-cycle development services. So at first, our business analyst gathered requirements to outline the technical details, cost, and scope of the project.  After that, the development started. For creating an intelligent chatbot that would naturally imitate a human consultant and provide personalized assistance, our developers “taught” the chatbot to determine the semantics of the page and discussion to answer with personalized and context-aware messages.  Belitsoft’s development team also used NLP (Natural language processing) techniques to make the chatbot act naturally. For that, they created predefined semantic categories with 3000 most used keywords, applied a word tokenization algorithm to parse a text into keywords, included a syntactic analyzer to remove stop-words and bring words to base forms, and many more. To effectively gather and manage all the incoming leads, the chatbot was accompanied by a SaaS web platform that serves as a database for businesses. Consequently, the startup founder got a chatbot that is simple to use and highly efficient in lead generation. Together with a chatbot came a database that prevented businesses from losing potential customers.  Both solutions made a powerful combination for lead generation for businesses. CASE STUDY: Custom Chatbot and SaaS Web Platform for Marketing Automation Startup Business Case 5: PoC of Cloud-Based Virtual Fuel Cards for a Logistics Startup The Client, a European startup in the logistics and transportation industry, partnered with Belitsoft to develop a cloud-based Virtual Fuel Cards (VFC) system for European truck carriers. As the startup didn’t have in-house resources to fulfill an idea, they searched for a reliable partner with the domain expertise to outsource not only the development process, but also business analysis, UX/UI design, and QA. The business founders lacked technical understanding of how it would work, so our team started with a discovery phase to check the idea against reality (the analysis of the target audience, creation of mockups, and outlining of the app functionality).  When at the discovery stage some serious technical issue was detected, we suggested making a PoC (Proof of Concept) to verify how the software product would function in a real-world environment. Proof of Concept revealed that the business idea wasn’t viable due to fuel cards' technical specifics. Even though the Client didn’t proceed with the product development, thanks to our analytical efforts it cost the startup only $2400 and 3 weeks to test their idea and avoid the risk of losing up to $200k of the planned project budget. CASE STUDY: PoC of Cloud-Based Virtual Fuel Cards for a Logistics Startup Deliver functional and awesome-looking SaaS app that users will pay for. Use the expertise of Belitsoft’s team in the full software development cycle: from PoC and prototyping to custom development and testing. Just tell our business development manager what help you need, and a pool of 400+ technical specialists will be at your disposal.

What is Rapid Enterprise Software Development Rapid enterprise application development is an approach to software development that puts more emphasis on prototyping instead of advanced planning. It helps achieve a higher speed of development than the traditional engineering approach. The knowledge obtained from the rapid development process itself improves the look and feel of the final solution. We mainly use this method with the Time & Material model and agile methods.  ISVs' stakeholders want to see the value in the first days and weeks, without the budget blowing up on research, choosing the best frameworks, and gathering non-functional requirements (that could be very important -  but for the next steps).   Modern users are less patient than ever before. They are less interested in the nuts and bolts of the back-end coding of web apps and just want it to enable them to seamlessly achieve business results or accomplish essential tasks.  One of the best practices in rapid enterprise software development is starting with the UX first. If you don’t have a visually appealing, easy-to-use web/mobile app that delivers the best possible customer experience, then you are going to have less engagement, even if the software product code is stellar.  Your product owners identify the core capabilities and priorities based on the strategic alignment with the business needs. Then prototypes and designs are created to resonate with what the users look for.  Once you confirm you have the right approach after going through a user testing process, hand it off to our enterprise software development team. In this process, the design side helps ensure you understand what your customers need. On the other hand, the development team ensures the new product is robust enough to survive in a production environment. Advantages of Rapid Enterprise Software Development Rapid development provides the following benefits: Better delivery The rapid development team is not trying to build a grand supersystem. The elementary system is delivered during the first few weeks or even days after the project start. Then, every two weeks, other system modules with increasing functionality could be delivered.   Better quality Users get useful business functionality much earlier. The software focuses on business problems critical to end-users rather than technical problems that are interesting mainly to developers.  Risk reduction The earlier a problem can be discovered in the development life-cycle, the cheaper it is to address it.  Rapid development prevents creating too complex or time-consuming solutions that would require a radical rethinking of the entire system in the nearest future. Rapid Development Approach to App Modernization  Today, providing reliable services could mean meeting the uptime requirements, and giving the headroom to serve thousands of customers across the globe by handling thousands of API calls per minute, and scaling to millions of database reads per minute by using highly available, fault-tolerant data stores.  To fill in the gaps in enterprise systems, and deliver modern, powerful business applications in a short timeframe, our teams, as part of our application modernization services, often use rapid enterprise software development platforms. Such solutions provide built-in components and strong reporting tools to develop, test, and customize code as needed.  These platforms allow modernizing software portfolio by building complex applications for any device, browser, and the full range of OSs, after spinning up an industry standards-based development environment in just a few minutes. The rapid development approach avoids the time-consuming rewriting of legacy code and helps modernize systems by layering new product on top of the monolithic application and delivering it to users in a highly consumable way. Easy implementation of modernized apps into customers’ day-to-day activities is achieved by integration with already existing backends such as on-premise databases or any data sources, existing logic layers, 3rd-party applications, and cloud service providers. The infrastructure can be hosted in a private cloud or a public cloud, or be delivered on-premises. Common Scenarios for Seeking Rapid Development Partner Maybe you: undertake a complete digital transformation of your platform, focusing on completely reimagining the client’s digital experience. It is essential for you to work with newer technologies that are not familiar to your full-time employees. have an original idea for a new interface and want to fuse this unique concept with your industry knowledge to produce a new service.  have done quite a bit of legwork, creating plans and mock-ups to help define your vision, or have completed a prototype or a proof of concept in-house. worked with another vendor first, but it didn’t meet your expectations. The first version of your app has been developed but there are some significant issues. You made the decision not to staff up internally and started looking at companies that specialized in this kind of application development to extend your development capabilities.  There is not a large candidate pool in the US and you face challenges in how you’d identify rapid development talent and find partners to help you address the design, resource, and integration challenges. Opt to go with Belitsoft to develop a scalable, potentially widely distributed, solid, and reliable in its performance piece of software. Relaunch your web/mobile app with the new experience to see dramatic growth in the number of users on the platform, and a massive uptick in usage. Belitsoft’s Approach to Rapid Development Rapid Prototyping You don’t neccessarily jump into the engagement on the development side immediately. Use us on a small-scale project. For example, start from a design perspective to build confidence in our understanding of the solutions that you want to build and our ability to execute them. The initial MVP development and rolling out of the product through various soft launches could be the first major milestone. Come to us with a prototype (if it has been developed), and guide us through what you’ve done and what you want to do. That may include some code that you’ve developed, screenshots of your rudimentary platform, and customer research.  We take your plans and designs to the next level, mapping out a development strategy, cost estimate, and timeline. We are transparent about the cost and often give you several different solutions to choose from to keep the price low. Belitsoft’s design resources can improve your designs and simplify the interface or create a totally new and unique user interface. We understand that it's really important to ensure that different aspects of the app look or function in a certain way, so it could be challenging to design it if you aren’t an expert. We ask questions in order to figure out the best solution. We listen carefully to your different requirements and unique demands to craft designs and prototypes that answer your needs. We guide you through a design phase. We realize journey mapping, develop user personas in much greater detail, and create wireframes.  Rapid Project Management We provide a point of contact in charge of different aspects of the project. Your project manager is instrumental in orchestrating the project and keeping the team focused. We then develop the app in an iterative process using the agile methodology, organized on your favorite project management platform. You know where the project is on any day, and what to expect going to every meeting. To be always prepared we have internal stand-ups prior to our meetings to exclude any wasted time for the client. Once the transition into full-scale development, we can build a cloud-based app in Azure or AWS and release the product.  We can then move to continued production and engineering support. Work with us on sizeable enhancements to the product. You also can have us design and develop your marketing website.  Rapid Development Team Creation We can assign business analysts, flexible project managers, and designers to focus on graphics and visuals, backend developers to work on the database and backend, frontend developers, full-stack developers, system architects, information security experts, QA specialists, software team leads, and cloud professionals to set up dev and prod environments in the cloud.  We can provide several development teams deeply integrated with your teams. The team size may fluctuate. These people can rotate in depending on your needs. Some may come and go depending on the expertise you need. On the rare occasion, if you have a resource that doesn’t meet your expectations, we immediately respond to rectify the situation.  Real Business Cases of Rapid Development Cybersecurity ISV: Rapid Web Development & Testing to Maintain Customer Base and Brand Image Challenge: The cybersecurity enterprise built and managed multiple complex software products. However, to sell them, they needed to customize the software for each end customer quickly. In conditions when the in-house R&D team was still busy with products evolution, there were not enough time and specialists for product customization. Thus, the ISV started to delay software products delivery, losing not only income but also clients’ loyalty and brand image. Solution: Outsourcing web development to dedicated developers became the most viable solution for rapid web development. To start performing immediately, Belitsoft assigned our most reliable, senior-level specialists from the company talent pool. They formed a team core, set up communication with the in-house managers, and onboarded newcomers, using their valuable knowledgebase in the domain and project. Thus, the cybersecurity enterprise received at their disposal a well-thought team acting as the right hand to their R&D department. Up to now, Belitsoft has hired, onboarded, and managed over 100 developers and software testing specialists for the cybersecurity ISV. Our mutual work has allowed the business to deliver software products on time, ensuring both company reputation and a stable client base. Besides, the business saved 40% on development and testing thanks to outsourcing. CASE STUDY: Rapid web development and testing for Cybersecurity ISV to maintain the customer base and brand image Elearning ISV: Rapid Web Development to Scale Startup to Enterprise Challenge: The eLearning ISV needed a SharePoint Learning Management System that is smoothly integrated into Microsoft 365 & Teams. To develop such a specific software product, they needed specialists with technical expertise and skills in the eLearning domain.  Recruiting local US developers was both expensive (US developers have 40% higher salaries) and time-consuming (interviewing hundreds of applicants). Solution from our Sharepoint development company: Hiring a dedicated software development team became a go-to option for the ISV that helped:  bring top-level technical specialists and close skills gaps in the domain (Sharepoint and eLearning), start web development rapidly by bringing core specialists from Belitsoft’s own resources, save money in the long run (lower salaries, no need to create infrastructure), deliver the end product faster thanks to the scaling ability of a desiccated team. Outsourcing software development to Belitsoft saved for the ISV 40-50% of the development costs ($600,000+). The launch of the SharePoint LMS served as a trampoline for the startup to grow into the enterprise that is currently Microsoft Gold Partner and Microsoft Strategic Partner. The end software product has 5+ million users and is used on a long-term basis by JFK School of Business at Harvard, Florida Department of Agriculture, and other corporate, governmental, and educational organizations. CASE STUDY: Rapid web development to scale startup to enterprise HealthTech ISV: Rapid Software Customization to Target a New Market Segment Challenge: The HealthTech ISV had a custom-built software product that required customization for specific workflows of each healthcare organization that bought it. The task took 100% of the in-house resources.  Thus, when the company leadership realized that the legacy framework of their product held back the business growth (cannot be sold to organizations using macOS), they needed extra resources urgently to mitigate the lost opportunities.  Solution: To boost the sales volume by entering a new segment (macOS users), the software product required modernization to .NET Core, which gives compatibility with both Windows and macOS. Hiring a dedicated team is the best option when rapid web development is required. Such an approach brings the business multiple benefits, including experienced developers without time-consuming recruiting, budget savings due to cheaper resources, and urgent scaling on demand. As a result, app modernization took less than 3 months. During this period, the HealthTech ISV kept on delivering products to the current customer base and got the opportunity to target a new market segment. CASE STUDY: Rapid software modernization to target a new market segment Get free consultation from an expert in rapid enterprise development, management, and team creation to find a viable solution for your case that will help you both deliver better results in a short term and save the budget.

1. SAAS COMPANY INVISION InVision is a web-based prototyping tool for web & app designers. It has raised a total of $134.1M in funding since launch. Header Footer 2. SAAS COMPANY SENDGRID Sendgrid is a cloud-based email app which works both for transactional email and marketing email campaigns.  It has raised a total of $80.36M in funding since launch. Header Footer 3. SAAS COMPANY LEVER Lever is a recruiting platform for human resource specialists. It has raised a total of $72.8M in funding since launch. Header Footer 4. SAAS COMPANY PERISCOPE DATA Periscope Data is a data analysis platform for data scientists. It has raised a total of $34.5M in funding since launch. Header Footer 5. SAAS COMPANY BENCH Bench is a bookkeeping app for small businesses. It has raised a total of $32.85M in funding since launch. Header Footer 6. SAAS COMPANY PIPEDRIVE Pipedrive is a CRM for sales pros. It has raised a total of $31.7M in funding since launch. Header Footer 7. SAAS COMPANY FOND Fond is a suite of employee engagement apps for companies strengthening their employer brands. It has raised a total of $25.85M in funding since launch. Header Footer 8. SAAS COMPANY LEADGENIUS LeadGenius is a lead generation app for enterprise marketing and sales leaders. It has raised a total of $20M in funding since launch. Header Footer 9. SAAS COMPANY RECURLY Recurly is a subscription billing management app for companies. It has raised a total of $19.6M in funding since launch. Header Footer 10. SAAS COMPANY INDINERO inDinero provides accounting software for small business owners. It has raised a total of $9.92M in funding since launch. Header Footer 11. SAAS COMPANY MARVEL Marvel is a is a prototyping and collaboration tool for software designers. It has raised a total of $7.98M in funding since launch. Header Footer 12. SAAS COMPANY PROVEN Proven is a hiring tool and job board app for hiring managers. It has raised a total of $4.79M in funding since launch. Header Footer 13. SAAS COMPANY ADESPRESSO AdEspresso is an app for creating, analyzing and optimizing Facebook Ads for businesses and marketers. It has raised a total of $3.2M in funding since launch and was acquired by Hootsuite. Header Footer 14. SAAS COMPANY UNBOUNCE Unbounce is a landing page builder app for marketers. It grew to over 15.6 million USD in annual recurring revenue (2016). Header Footer 15. SAAS COMPANY BUFFER Buffer is a social media scheduling app for marketers, businesses, and corporations. Today it has more than $1M/month in recurring revenue (2016). Header Footer 16. SAAS COMPANY ZAPIER Zapier is a web automation app for busy people who know their time is better spent selling, marketing, or coding.  Now, it has close to $7M in annual revenue (2016). Header Footer 17. SAAS COMPANY GROOVE Groove is a web-based help desk software for small businesses.  Today, it's recurring revenue is more than $5M / year (2016). Header Footer 18. SAAS COMPANY HUBSTAFF Hubstaff is a web-based time tracking application for remote teams. Today, it has $2,4M ARR. Header Footer 19. SAAS COMPANY CHARGIFY Chargify is a recurring billing app for SaaS companies. Today, it has $1.7M live paying subscriptions. Header Footer 20. SAAS COMPANY OLARK Olark is a live chat software for sales, marketing, and customer support on your website. Today, this app is used by 12 000 paying customers worldwide. Header Footer The professionally designed website is an excellent way to promote your brand online. Belitsoft provides full-cycle SaaS development services: from gathering requirements to web design and product development. Our SaaS web designers are always trying to stay ahead of the game. Hire us to get the web design that will sell your SaaS product.

A dedicated web development team is a collaboration model that utilizes an outsourced workforce for long-term projects. This model is the most effective way to outsource. When you select and hire dedicated web developers, the vendor will assemble a group of professionals who are tailored to meet your business objectives. The dedicated development team resembles an in-house team hiring model, but it eliminates the need to manage tax, social benefits, and HR issues. Additionally, when you hire dedicated web developers, it allows you to focus on more critical business matters while the outsourced team handles other tasks. Check out how our dedicated web developers fill urgent need for senior developers to customize the Client's core software product for end customers. Find Out More Web Development Case Studies Dedicated Front-End Developers Get your website/applications user-friendly and enjoyable to use. Our world-class remote engineering talents create interactive web UIs using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to interact with your data models. Our senior dedicated developers are pre-screened across skills in frameworks like React, Vue.js, and Angular. You’ll get a responsive design that looks, feels, and works great, regardless of the device, and has a competitive user interface that functions seamlessly across multiple platforms. Dedicated Back-End Developers Get reliable backend technology experts to help guide you through the web development process, and create business logic to manipulate data received from the client side. Revamp and upgrade your web app’s entire backend including purchase flow, payment processing, backend data repository, and more. Hire developers skilled in an MVC design pattern, who understand how to protect your apps. We provide high-caliber dedicated backend developers with an in-depth understanding of SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Azure Cosmos DB and other databases. By choosing to hire dedicated Java developers or specialists in other backend technologies like .NET, you gain access to professionals who create crucial business logic for managing data from client-side interfaces, such as web pages or mobile apps. Their skillset extends to include managing the purchase flow, payment processing, backend data repositories, and more. Our API developers are experienced in decomposing monolith into microservices, creating RESTful services, deploying, and updating web applications from GitHub. Typical Structure of a Dedicated Web Development Team Business Analyst The main duty of a business analyst is to comprehend the business necessities and convert them into technical specifications that the development team can utilize to construct the web application. They are also vital in ensuring that the final output aligns with the business stakeholders' needs and adheres to the overall business strategy.  They are accountable for identifying business needs, examining business processes, and proposing improvements. Recommendations can include changes to the web application, to the way the project is managed, or even to the way the business operates overall. UX/UI designer Hiring a UX/UI designer for a web development project is crucial for its success. They design the user interface and user experience, conduct user research to meet their needs and preferences, and create wireframes, prototypes and mockups for the development team. They also ensure that the design is feasible and within budget and time constraints. A good UX/UI design leads to higher user satisfaction, increased conversion rate and improved business reputation. Tech Lead A tech lead ensures the technical aspects of the project are executed successfully. They are responsible for the overall technical direction, design, and implementation of the web project, as well as mentoring and guiding the web development team. Project Manager Hiring a project manager for web development is essential for ensuring the success of the project. They coordinate the development team, ensuring tasks are completed on time and within budget. They also identify and mitigate risks, manage resources, and ensure the final product meets client requirements and exceeds expectations. Without a project manager (third-party or your own), the project may not be completed on time and within budget. Investing in a project manager is a wise decision that will pay off in the long run. Quality Assurance testers Quality Assurance testers play a critical role in guaranteeing that the web application functions correctly and conforms to the set quality standards. Their responsibilities include testing the web application to ensure that it is free of errors and bugs and that it meets the specifications and requirements. Additionally, they conduct compatibility testing to ensure that the application runs smoothly on various devices and browsers. QA testers use different tools and techniques to perform functional, integration, system, and acceptance testing to detect and report any issues or bugs. They also collaborate with the development team to identify, prioritize and resolve defects promptly. DevOps engineers DevOps engineers are responsible for making sure that the application is deployed without any issues, always available and working properly. They constantly monitoring its performance and fixing any problems that arise. DevOps engineers rely on tools such as version control systems, containerization platforms, and infrastructure as code. When to Hire Dedicated Web Developers If budget constraints are preventing your company from scaling the web project, either through hiring more in-house developers or keeping up with product growth. If your team is unable to complete the scope of work in a timely and efficient manner due to a lack of web development resources. If your developers do not possess the necessary expertise to implement new features and scale the web application. Types of Dedicated Web Development Team Models Large team of dedicated web developers to expand the development department's capabilities for a long-term scope of work. Such team may consist of 4-6 web developers and more, with project management on your side. Small team of dedicated web developers to overcome specific challenges. Typically, 1-2 web developers are enough as team extension resources. The project management is on your side. Project-based dedicated web development team is suitable for startup founders or product managers. Belistsoft acts as a technology partner to develop the product from scratch, take care of future support, and scaling. The management takes place on our side. What the Process of Hiring a Dedicated Developer Looks Like You send us a request with the initial information about your web project, including the desired functionality. We schedule an introductory call, and if necessary, sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) before discussing the project in detail and introducing you to our web development company. We present you with a list of CVs of the most suitable members for your team. You shortlist the experienced candidates who are the best fit for the project. You have a technical conversation with our shortlisted candidates, usually with your CTO or in-house team. We repeat the search and interview process until you find the right candidate. Once satisfied with the candidate, we finalize all necessary documents, team models, and the dedicated web developer joins your project. Why Hire Dedicated Web Developers from Belitsoft Senior-level web developers without recruiting burden Belitsoft takes care of the burdensome recruitment process, including HR, payroll, accounting, local management, and the whole infrastructure, saving time and money.  To find the talents that fit your project best, our HR specialists search for candidates both within our proper talent pool and on the job market. By running multiple interviews, we shortlist only the best ones from whom our clients choose the professionals they prefer.  Competence in multiple web development tasks Belitsoft has completed over 200 web projects, from websites to complex enterprise platforms and apps, with 70 of these projects being particularly large and demanding, each requiring over 2000 man-hours. Now, our teams apply this hands-on experience to build many types of software, including CRM, ERP, LMS, EHR, BI solutions,  IoT solutions, etc. Belitsoft can also guarantee fast and high-quality results due to years of working in various knowledge domains, with the majority of projects in  eLearning, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Data Privacy and Security, Financial and Banking, Logistics and Transportation, Agriculture, Sports, etc Fair and clear pricing We always suggest various pricing models to choose from, including a dedicated team model for large projects that require a flexible time frame, budget, and control over the development process.  Our pricing is structured to provide long-term benefits for projects lasting 12+ months. The dedicated web developers work at a fixed monthly cost, with no hidden expenses. The final monthly fee is determined after all project requirements and needed developer profiles are agreed upon.  Full control and easy management Our clients get full control and easy management of projects. We keep business stakeholders informed of progress, development schedules, and deliverables at all times.  The development process is transparent, allowing our clients to monitor the team's activity without requiring constant attention. We use various project management tools such as Jira, Trello, Taskworld, Worksection, and Fusioo to track the team's progress. Regular meetings are scheduled for the business’s top managers to review what the team has accomplished and their plans for the upcoming days, as well as any issues that may have arisen.  Adaptability and 100% focus on the project The dedicated web development team can be adjusted at any stage of the project to meet changing requirements, budget, or market performance, allowing for adaptability and full focus on the project.  The ability to increase or decrease the number of dedicated web developers, or provide bonuses or salary increases to high-performing individuals, ensures that a business owner gets the most value for investment and sets the foundation for a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership. We can find the perfect dedicated web developer for you. Don't waste time searching for the right web developer, let us handle it for you! Contact us today to get started.

Responsive and adaptive websites Responsive websites, like any other, consist of a set of interconnected HTML pages that can be opened via any browser. The difference is, they are designed to adapt to the way the content is rendered on a variety of screen sizes with the help of CSS media queries. The idea is to provide a user with a perfect experience regardless of the device they access the website. It saves the need to resize anything manually to view content. One should not confuse responsive and adaptive websites. The latter term is used to name a website that leverages different layouts designed for a certain set of screen sizes. It means that a developer should bear in mind all the possible existing size and resolution options. If the website does not support one of them, it will not be displayed decently. Meanwhile, the former type implies that there is only one layout that is “fluid” and adapts automatically the way it is optimal for the given screen. The animation demonstrates the basic difference between the two. Responsive web design is above, adaptive below. Source: css-tricks.com While both ideas have their right to exist, a responsive website approach is recommended by Google. The history of website adapting its layout to the browser viewpoint width parameters can be traced back to 2001 and Audi.com. The term “responsive web design” itself was coined in 2010 by Ethan Marcotte.  Mashable called 2013 “the year of responsive web design”.   But it was not until 2015 when the “responsive” idea was reinforced by Google. The company announced that it will adjust its search mechanisms to promote the rankings of mobile-friendly pages. The concept was even dubbed Mobilegeddon. Google believes that the measure will lead to better user experience, since “the desktop version of a site might be difficult to view and use on a mobile device”. Google also states, that “61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble accessing from their phone, and 40% go to a competitor’s.” Statista claims, that 52.5 % of all website traffic worldwide in 2018 is generated through mobile phones. Percentage of all global web pages served to mobile phones from 2009 to 2018 Thus, well-designed mobile experience is no more a matter of preference, but an apparent need for businesses. Mobile apps One of the pivotal moments that gave rise for mobile apps was a 2007 Steve Jobs Keynote Speech, where the concept of the first iPhone was unveiled. A year later, on July 10, 2008, Apple launched the first ever Apple App Store with 500 apps. A few months later, on 22 October 2008, Android Market ( Google play since 2012) with 50 apps showed up. The word “app” was named as “Word of the Year” by the American Dialect Society for 2010. After almost a decade, apps hold a predominant position when it comes to the share of mobile time. More than 80% of mobile minutes worldwide are spent on apps. There are three main options for creating a mobile app: native, hybrid and cross-platform. A native mobile app is coded in a specific programming language for each targeted platform, such as Objective C and Swift for iOS or Java, Kotlin and C/C++ for Android. Hybrid mobile apps are designed for multiple operating systems. They are written using web technologies (like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5) and then wrapped into a mobile app with WebView to run on each platform. The most popular frameworks for hybrid app development are PhoneGap, Cordova, and Ionic. Like the hybrid, cross-platform mobile apps are aimed at running on different platforms. However, they do not wield HTML and CSS and talk directly to the mobile OS. Mobile application development is one of Belitsoft’s top priorities. Learn more about why you should choose us for your next mobile app. Do you want to reach a broader audience? Typically, the first move one is likely to do when coming across an unfamiliar brand is google it. While both apps and responsive websites can appear in search results, a responsive website is made for both mobile and desktop browsers and allows to capture a broader audience. Moreover, one generally tends to explore an unfamiliar brand via a website first. The reason is a user does not have to download or install it, thus they should not allocate some treasured mobile storage for an app of a brand they do not know. ‘Mobile web is an acquisition channel, and may be first time people are experiencing our company. Once they have a strong relationship with the brand, we use the app to create personalized experiences that cater to the customer.’ Director of mobile, large US office supply retailer To earn users’ loyalty to the brand, companies cook up all kinds of bonus systems. For example, Starbucks Rewards app enables its users to receive stars for purchases that add up to some free food and drinks later. That is, mobile websites are a good choice for establishing initial awareness and engagement. However, for more personalized customer-user interactions and retention, it is better to go with an app. Another advantage of a responsive website is that it can be accessed via any device regardless of the OS it is based on. The only thing to bear in mind is HTML5 compatibility. In fact, all of the big-league browsers like Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Safari for IOS and Android-optimized browsers support HTML5, but some features vary from browser to browser. What about time and resources? Responsive website development will have a much lower price tag and time needed than a native mobile app build up. The reason is that instead of one responsive website you have to develop at least two apps from scratch (one for Android and one for iOS) and hire a development team for each version. This, in turn, entails two times more work and resources while bug fixing and adding new features. It also makes maintenance cost higher. Yet, responsive websites can’t provide a full-scale mobile experience (more on it below) and you still have to pay for domain and hosting. However, if you still do want an app, but do not have resources and time for native apps development, you may consider going hybrid or cross-platform. Both approaches require building only one app for all platforms, which means shorter development time (including later updates and new features integration) and efficient maintenance. For example, Ionic 2 code is nearly 100% reusable. Such apps will run seamlessly regardless of the OS. Though some UI components still need to be adjusted to the target platform requirements. React Native and Xamarin allow to retain approximately 90% and up to 96% of code respectively. Read more about how Ionic 2, React Native and Xamarin compare in our blog. By the way, to distribute your apps in market stores it is also necessary to pay the registration fee. The price is one-time 25$ to Google Play and annual 99$ for the Apple Developer Program or 299 USD for the Apple Developer Enterprise Program to App Store. Are you going to update a lot? A website requires fewer efforts and costs for its maintaining compared to mobile apps. For example, you only have to edit your website once and the upgrades will be immediately active across all kinds of devices. Meanwhile, editing a native mobile app is a more knotty procedure. After an upgraded version for each OS type is prepared, it should be approved by the marketplaces. On average, it takes from 24 hours for 50% of apps to 48 hours for over 90% of apps to be reviewed on App Store. What for Google Play, it suggests waiting for at least 24 hours for an update to appear before contacting its support team. Besides, an end-user either has to set automatic updates on or upgrade an app manually after each update to get the changes. Since hybrid apps leverage HTML5, you get an ability to update an app without asking a user to upgrade it on their device. It allows for easier app management by enabling developers to implement updates and fix bugs as needed. In addition, there is no waiting time to get the update approved. Cross-platform apps built with React Native can also benefit from the Over-the-Air update feature. However, for some significant upgrades like adding new features, it is recommended to send out an app to an app store for review. What industry are you aiming at? User’s choice of a means for accessing the Internet largely depends on a type of activity they want to engage in. IAB conducted a Global mobile experience study, where they divided mobile activities into 3 groups: functionality, entertainment, and communications. Consumers tend to use mobile web for utility-directed tasks like searching, booking, and purchasing products. When entertainment and communications come into play, mobile apps are, for the most part, a far more favored alternative. Another research further proves the idea that things like communication, weather, games, music, photo and video, physical activity tracking, and daily management are better off as an app. Imagine that if it were not for an Instagram app, you should open a mobile browser, log in and only then could you see that awesome picture of a friend. All this instead of simple tap on the app’s icon. ‘Though responsive design is much better than having to ‘pinch-and-zoom’, it isn’t an optimized experience for mobile visitors. At its core, responsive design makes the desktop experience look good on mobile, but it doesn’t address the specific needs of mobile visitors.’ Talia Wolf, listed among influential voices in conversion optimization Do you need offline mode? Responsive websites require a constant Internet connection. Of course, you can save a certain webpage for offline reading both on iOS and Android, but for anything else you need to stay online. Apps can work both online and offline. While it may not be such an issue for the “first world” countries, it makes a difference for developing states. So when your users must have access to an app’s data anytime and anywhere, better go with an app. Some examples of apps that provide offline functionality are: Google Maps, that offers offline access to maps and turn-by-turn navigation. However, it's necessary to download the area of interest from Google Maps in advance to use it offline. Spotify - a music streaming app, Premium version of which allows users to enjoy their music offline. A variety of dictionaries like Merriam Webster, Dictionary.com, and WordWeb to name a few. Take a look at our mobile app portfolio to see some examples of apps with offline mode. Do you need mobile native features? Mobile devices earned their popularity not just because they fit in the pocket, but also because they are stuffed with such features as Bluetooth, camera, GPS, contact list, speech recognition and many more. Since native mobile apps are designed specifically for each target platform, they can immediately access all device-specific features. It is also feasible to leverage required mobile functionality in hybrid apps with the help of PhoneGap or Cordova. Cross-platform React Native apps can also access native functionality using native modules. Mobile internet browsers are helping to bridge the gap between an app and a website. However, the user experience may depend on the OS and browser one chooses. While both iOS Safari and Android Chrome can support geolocation, they still lack geofencing functionality. Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today Geofencing integrated into mobile apps is a powerful tool for mobile marketers to boost engagement. It enables triggering push notifications every time a user enters a certain location. The idea is to drive interaction by targeting the right people in the right places and at the right time. According to a Global Market Insights report, the geofencing market size was estimated at over 200 million in 2016 with a CAGR of over 28% from 2017 to 2024. Walmart was one of the first retailers to introduce geofencing in its app with a “Store Mode”. ‘When you enter the store with the mobile app, say you're in Store Mode, you can search the store, and it can also give you the local ad for the store you're in so you know what's on sale in that store. We were one of the first retailers to do that.’ Ojonimi Bako, director of innovation for Walmart Labs By the way, not every mobile browser even supports push notifications. Android/Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS/Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today It means that even if your iPhone or iPad has a browser like Chrome installed, you still will not be able to receives pushes on your device. Android browsers, however, favor the feature. Why does it matter? Leanplum says, that promotional push notifications lead to an almost tenfold increase in purchases and 16 % more money spend with your brand. Neither iOS Safari nor Android Chrome browser won’t be useful if one wants to embrace NFC. Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today The technology is widely implemented in the mobile payment industry. Apps like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or MasterCard PayPass are vivid specimens. Yet NFC is not only about payments. For example, InstaWifi app allows to easily share WiFi login information through NFC tag or QR code. EndlessID is a great idea of NFC implementation in healthcare. The app enables sharing of medical and emergency contact information, ensuring the safety of your loved ones. BelitSoft has extensive expertise in healthcare solutions development. Write to us to get a free quote! A responsive website can also strip you of access to contacts, SMS sharing, task scheduling, and wake lock. Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today To crown it all, with iOS websites one also will not be able to enjoy the features like speech recognition, VR, AR, fullscreen mode, access to battery status and some others. Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today Android Chrome. Source: https://whatwebcando.today IOS Safari. Source: https://whatwebcando.today What about Progressive Web Apps? Introduced in 2015 by Google, Progressive web apps (PWAs) are roughly defined as a website that looks and behaves as if it is a mobile app. PWAs are built to take advantage of native mobile device features, without requiring the end user to visit an app store, make a purchase and download software locally. Instead, a PWA can be located with a search engine query and accessed immediately through a browser. There is no need to write different code for each platform - one app will do it all. However, its functionality may be still limited by browsers. For example, Firefox adds icon badges to a PWA’s home screen image, while Chrome still does not. Apple, though neglecting PWAs for a long time, has also finally introduced its main components - Service Workers and Web App Manifest - to Safari 11.1. It allows Safari-run PWAs to work offline and be pinned to the home screen, providing more native-like experience. Yet, Apple, unlike others, still does not allow its PWA users to get web push notifications. Brands like Twitter, Forbes, Washington Post, Flipkart Lite and Aliexpress have successfully implemented a new app-style and are reaping the rewards. For example, Aliexpress PWA resulted in a 74% increase in time spent per session and 104% conversion rate growth for new customers. With its PWA, Forbes saw a 43% increase in sessions per user compared to the previous mobile site, and engagement was up 100%. Twitter designed its PWA with the focus on instant loading, user engagement, and lower data consumption. It helped reduce a size app from 23.5MB Android version to only 600KB of PWA. By this, Twitter aims at covering a broader audience, including those of emerging markets. As a result, the number of pages viewed per session increased by 65% and the bounce rate decreased by 20%. Conclusion Choosing between a responsive website and a mobile app is not a black-and-white issue. The decision should be made based on your business’ goals and resources. While apps generally provide a more personalized experience, going responsive can attract a broader audience and save a lot of money. Besides, a mobile approach can reasonably include both options.

Benefits of Azure Functions With Azure Functions, enterprises offload operational burden to Azure or outsource infrastructure management to Microsoft. There are no servers/VMs for operations teams to manage. No patching OS, configuring scale sets, or worrying about load balancer configuration. Fewer infrastructure management tasks mean smaller DevOps teams and free IT personnel. Functions Platform-as-a-Service integrates easily with other Azure services - it is a prime candidate in any 2025 platform selection matrix. CTOs and VPs of Engineering see adopting Functions as aligned with transformation roadmaps and multi-cloud parity goals. They also view Functions on Azure Container Apps as a logical step in microservice re-platforming and modernization programs, because it enables lift-and-shift of container workloads into a serverless model. Azure Functions now supports container-app co-location and user-defined concurrency - it fits modern reference architectures while controlling spend. The service offers pay-per-execution pricing and a 99.95% SLA on Flex Consumption. Many previous enterprise blockers - network isolation, unpredictable cold starts, scale ceilings - are now mitigated with the Flex Consumption SKU (faster cold starts, user-set concurrency, VNet-integrated "scale-to-zero"). Heads of Innovation pilot Functions for business-process automation and novel services, since MySQL change-data triggers, Durable orchestrations, and browser-based Visual Studio Code enable quick prototyping of automation and new products. Functions enables rapid feature rollout through code-only deployment and auto-scaling, and new OpenAI bindings shorten minimum viable product cycles for artificial intelligence, so Directors of Product see it as a lever for faster time-to-market and differentiation. Functions now supports streaming HTTP, common programming languages like .NET, Node, and Python, and browser-based development through Visual Studio Code, so team onboarding is low-friction. Belitsoft applies deep Azure and .NET development expertise to design serverless solutions that scale with your business. Our Azure Functions developers architect systems that reduce operational overhead, speed up delivery, and integrate seamlessly across your cloud stack. Future of Azure Functions Azure Functions will remain a cornerstone of cloud-native application design. It follows Microsoft's cloud strategy of serverless and event-driven computing and aligns with containers/Kubernetes and AI trends. New features will likely be backward-compatible, protecting investments in serverless architecture. Azure Functions will continue integrating with other Azure services. .NET functions are transitioning to the isolated worker model, decoupling function code from host .NET versions - by 2026, the older in-process model will be phased out. What is Azure Functions Azure Functions is a fully managed serverless service - developers don’t have to deploy or maintain servers. Microsoft handles the underlying servers, applies operating-system and runtime patches, and provides automatic scaling for every Function App. Azure Functions scales out and in automatically in response to incoming events - no autoscale rules are required. On Consumption and Flex Consumption plans you pay only when functions are executing - idle time isn’t billed. The programming model is event-driven, using triggers and bindings to run code when events occur. Function executions are intended to be short-lived (default 5-minute timeout, maximum 10 minutes on the Consumption plan). Microsoft guidance is to keep functions stateless and persist any required state externally - for example with Durable Functions entities.  The App Service platform automatically applies OS and runtime security patches, so Function Apps receive updates without manual effort. Azure Functions includes built-in triggers and bindings for services such as Azure Storage, Event Hubs, and Cosmos DB, eliminating most custom integration code. Azure Functions Core Architecture Components Each Azure Function has exactly one trigger, making it an independent unit of execution. Triggers insulate the function from concrete event sources (HTTP requests, queue messages, blob events, and more), so the function code stays free of hard-wired integrations. Bindings give a declarative way to read from or write to external services, eliminating boiler-plate connection code. Several functions are packaged inside a Function App, which supplies the shared execution context and runtime settings for every function it hosts. Azure Function Apps run on the Azure App Service platform. The platform can scale Function Apps out and in automatically based on workload demand (for example, in Consumption, Flex Consumption, and Premium plans). Azure Functions offers three core hosting plans - Consumption, Premium, and Dedicated (App Service) - each representing a distinct scaling model and resource envelope. Because those plans diverge in limits (CPU/memory, timeout, scale-out rules), they deliver different performance characteristics. Function Apps can use enterprise-grade platform features - including Managed Identity, built-in Application Insights monitoring, and Virtual Network Integration - for security and observability. The runtime natively supports multiple languages (C#, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Java, PowerShell, and others), letting each function be written in the team’s preferred stack. Advanced Architecture Patterns Orchestrator functions can call other functions in sequence or in parallel, providing a code-first workflow engine on top of the Azure Functions runtime. Durable Functions is an extension of Azure Functions that enables stateful function orchestration. It lets you build long-running, stateful workflows by chaining functions together. Because Durable Functions keeps state between invocations, architects can create more-sophisticated serverless solutions that avoid the traditional stateless limitation of FaaS. The stateful workflow model is well suited to modeling complex business processes as composable serverless workflows. It adds reliability and fault tolerance. As of 2025, Durable Functions supports high-scale orchestrations, thanks to the new durable-task-scheduler backend that delivers the highest throughput. Durable Functions now offers multiple managed and BYO storage back-ends (Azure Storage, Netherite, MSSQL, and the new durable-task-scheduler), giving architects new options for performance. Azure Logic Apps and Azure Functions have been converging. Because Logic Apps Standard is literally hosted inside the Azure Functions v4 runtime, every benefit for Durable Functions (stateful orchestration, high-scale back-ends, resilience, simplified ops) now spans both the code-first and low-code sides of Azure’s workflow stack. Architects can mix Durable Functions and Logic Apps on the same CI/CD pipeline, and debug both locally with one tooling stack. They can put orchestrator functions, activity functions, and Logic App workflows into a single repo and deploy them together. They can also run Durable Functions and Logic Apps together in the same resource group, share a storage account, deploy from the same repo, and wire them up through HTTP or Service Bus (a budget for two plans or an ASE is required). Azure Functions Hosting Models and Scalability Options Azure Functions offers five hosting models - Consumption, Premium, Dedicated, Flex Consumption, and container-based (Azure Container Apps). The Consumption plan is billed strictly “per-execution”, based on per-second resource consumption and number of executions. This plan can scale down to zero when the function app is idle. Microsoft documentation recommends the Consumption plan for irregular or unpredictable workloads. The Premium plan provides always-ready (pre-warmed) instances that eliminate cold starts. It auto-scales on demand while avoiding cold-start latency. In a Dedicated (App Service) plan the Functions host “can run continuously on a prescribed number of instances”, giving fixed compute capacity. The plan is recommended when you need fully predictable billing and manual scaling control. The Flex Consumption plan (GA 2025) lets you choose from multiple fixed instance-memory sizes (currently 2 GB and 4 GB). Hybrid & multi-cloud Function apps can be built and deployed as containers and run natively inside Azure Container Apps, which supplies a fully-managed, KEDA-backed, Kubernetes-based environment. Kubernetes-based hosting The Azure Functions runtime is packaged as a Docker image that “can run anywhere,” letting you replicate serverless capabilities in any Kubernetes cluster. AKS virtual nodes are explicitly supported. KEDA is the built-in scale controller for Functions on Kubernetes, enabling scale-to-zero and event-based scale out. Hybrid & multi-cloud hosting with Azure Arc Function apps (code or container) can be deployed to Arc-connected clusters, giving you the same Functions experience on-premises, at the edge, or in other clouds. Arc lets you attach Kubernetes clusters “running anywhere” and manage & configure them from Azure, unifying governance and operations. Arc supports clusters on other public clouds as well as on-premises data centers, broadening where Functions can run. Consistent runtime everywhere Because the same open-source Azure Functions runtime container is used across Container Apps, AKS/other Kubernetes clusters, and Arc-enabled environments, the execution model, triggers, and bindings remain identical no matter where the workload is placed. Azure Functions Enterprise Integration Capabilities Azure Functions runs code without you provisioning or managing servers. It is event-driven and offers triggers and bindings that connect your code to other Azure or external services. It can be triggered by Azure Event Grid events, by Azure Service Bus queue or topic messages, or invoked directly over HTTP via the HTTP trigger, enabling API-style workloads. Azure Functions is one of the core services in Azure Integration Services, alongside Logic Apps, API Management, Service Bus, and Event Grid. Within that suite, Logic Apps provides high-level workflow orchestration, while Azure Functions provides event-driven, code-based compute for fine-grained tasks. Azure Functions integrates natively with Azure API Management so that HTTP-triggered functions can be exposed as managed REST APIs. API Management includes built-in features for securing APIs with authentication and authorization, such as OAuth 2.0 and JWT validation. It also supports request throttling and rate limiting through the rate-limit policy, and supports formal API versioning, letting you publish multiple versions side-by-side. API Management is designed to securely publish your APIs for internal and external developers. Azure Functions scales automatically - instances are added or removed based on incoming events. Azure Functions Security Infrastructure hardening Azure App Service - the platform that hosts Azure Functions - actively secures and hardens its virtual machines, storage, network connections, web frameworks, and other components.  VM instances and runtime software that run your function apps are regularly updated to address newly discovered vulnerabilities.  Each customer’s app resources are isolated from those of other tenants.  Identity & authentication Azure Functions can authenticate users and callers with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) through the built-in App Service Authentication feature.  The Functions can also be configured to use any standards-compliant OpenID Connect (OIDC) identity provider.  Network isolation Function apps can integrate with an Azure Virtual Network. Outbound traffic is routed through the VNet, giving the app private access to protected resources.  Private Endpoint support lets function apps on Flex Consumption, Elastic Premium, or Dedicated (App Service) plans expose their service on a private IP inside the VNet, keeping all traffic on the corporate network.  Credential management Managed identities are available for Azure Functions; the platform manages the identity so you don’t need to store secrets or rotate credentials.  Transport-layer protection You can require HTTPS for all public endpoints. Azure documentation recommends redirecting HTTP traffic to HTTPS to ensure SSL/TLS encryption.  App Service (and therefore Azure Functions) supports TLS 1.0 – 1.3, with the default minimum set to TLS 1.2 and an option to configure a stricter minimum version.  Security monitoring Microsoft Defender for Cloud integrates directly with Azure Functions and provides vulnerability assessments and security recommendations from the portal.  Environment separation Deployment slots allow a single function app to run multiple isolated instances (for example dev, test, staging, production), each exposed at its own endpoint and swappable without downtime.  Strict single-tenant / multi-tenant isolation Running Azure Functions inside an App Service Environment (ASE) places them in a fully isolated, dedicated environment with the compute that is not shared with other customers - meeting high-sensitivity or regulatory isolation requirements.  Azure Functions Monitoring Azure Monitor exposes metrics both at the Function-App level and at the individual-function level (for example Function Execution Count and Function Execution Units), enabling fine-grained observability. Built-in observability Native hook-up to Azure Monitor & Application Insights – every new Function App can emit metrics, logs, traces and basic health status without any extra code or agents.  Data-driven architecture decisions Rich telemetry (performance, memory, failures) – Application Insights automatically captures CPU & memory counters, request durations and exception details that architects can query to guide sizing and design changes.  Runtime topology & trace analysis Application Map plus distributed tracing render every function-to-function or dependency call, flagging latency or error hot-spots so that inefficient integrations are easy to see.  Enterprise-wide data export Diagnostic settings let you stream Function telemetry to Log Analytics workspaces or Event Hubs, standardising monitoring across many environments and aiding compliance reporting.  Infrastructure-as-Code & DevOps integration Alert and monitoring rules can be authored in ARM/Bicep/Terraform templates and deployed through CI/CD pipelines, so observability is version-controlled alongside the function code.  Incident management & self-healing Function-specific "Diagnose and solve problems" detectors surface automated diagnostic insights, while Azure Monitor action groups can invoke runbooks, Logic Apps or other Functions to remediate recurring issues with no human intervention.  Hybrid / multi-cloud interoperability OpenTelemetry preview lets a Function App export the very same traces and logs to any OTLP-compatible endpoint as well as (or instead of) Application Insights, giving ops teams a unified view across heterogeneous platforms.  Cost-optimisation insights Fine-grained metrics such as FunctionExecutionCount and FunctionExecutionUnits (GB-seconds = memory × duration) identify high-cost executions or over-provisioned plans and feed charge-back dashboards.  Real-time storytelling tools Application Map and the Live Metrics Stream provide live, clickable visualisations that non-technical stakeholders can grasp instantly, replacing static diagrams during reviews or incident calls.  Kusto log queries across durations, error rates, exceptions and custom metrics to allow architects prove performance, reliability and scalability targets. Azure Functions Performance and Scalability Scaling capacity Azure Functions automatically add or remove host instances according to the volume of trigger events. A single Windows-based Consumption-plan function app can fan out to 200 instances by default (100 on Linux). Quota increases are possible. You can file an Azure support request to raise these instance-count limits. Cold-start behaviour & mitigation Because Consumption apps scale to zero when idle, the first request after idleness incurs extra startup latency (a cold start). Premium plan keeps instances warm. Every Premium (Elastic Premium) plan keeps at least one instance running and supports pre-warmed instances, effectively eliminating cold starts. Scaling models & concurrency control Functions also support target-based scaling, which can add up to four instances per decision cycle instead of the older one-at-a-time approach. Premium plans let you set minimum/maximum instance counts and tune per-instance concurrency limits in host.json. Regional characteristics Quotas are scoped per region. For example, Flex Consumption imposes a 512 GB regional memory quota, and Linux Consumption apps have a 500-instance-per-subscription-per-hour regional cap. Apps can be moved or duplicated across regions. Microsoft supplies guidance for relocating a Function App to another Azure region and for cross-region recovery. Downstream-system protection Rapid scale-out can overwhelm dependencies. Microsoft’s performance guidance warns that Functions can generate throughput faster than back-end services can absorb and recommends applying throttling or other back-pressure techniques. Configuration impact on cost & performance Plan selection and tuning directly affect both. Choice of hosting plan, instance limits and concurrency settings determine a Function App’s cold-start profile, throughput and monthly cost. How Belitsoft Can Help Our serverless developers modernize legacy .NET apps into stateless, scalable Azure Functions and Azure Container Apps. The team builds modular, event-driven services that offload operational grunt work to Azure. You get faster delivery, reduced overhead, and architectures that belong in this decade. Also, we do CI/CD so your devs can stop manually clicking deploy. We ship full-stack teams fluent in .NET, Python, Node.js, and caffeine - plus SignalR developers experienced in integrating live messaging into serverless apps. Whether it's chat, live dashboards, or notifications, we help you deliver instant, event-driven experiences using Azure SignalR Service with Azure Functions. Our teams prototype serverless AI with OpenAI bindings, Durable Functions, and browser-based VS Code so you can push MVPs like you're on a startup deadline. You get your business processes automated so your workflows don’t depend on somebody's manual actions. Belitsoft’s .NET engineers containerize .NET Functions for Kubernetes and deploy across AKS, Container Apps, and Arc. They can scale with KEDA, trace with OpenTelemetry, and keep your architectures portable and governable. Think: event-driven, multi-cloud, DevSecOps dreams - but with fewer migraines. We build secure-by-design Azure Functions with VNet, Private Endpoints, and ASE. Our .NET developers do identity federation, TLS enforcement, and integrate Azure Monitor + Defender. Everything sensitive is locked in Key Vault. Our experts fine-tune hosting plans (Consumption, Premium, Flex) for cost and performance sweet spots and set up full observability pipelines with Azure Monitor, OpenTelemetry, and Logic Apps for auto-remediation. Belitsoft helps you build secure, scalable solutions that meet real-world demands - across industries and use cases. We offer future-ready architecture for your needs - from cloud migration to real-time messaging and AI integration. Consult our experts.

Azure SignalR Use Cases Azure SignalR is routinely chosen as the real-time backbone when organizations modernize legacy apps or design new interactive experiences. It can stream data to connected clients instantly instead of forcing them to poll for updates. Azure SignalR can push messages in milliseconds at scale. Live dashboards and monitoring Company KPIs, financial-market ticks, IoT telemetry and performance metrics can update in real time on browsers or mobile devices, and Microsoft’s Stream Analytics pattern documentation explicitly recommends SignalR for such dynamic dashboards. Real-time chat High-throughput chat rooms, customer-support consoles and collaborative messengers rely on SignalR’s group- and user-targeted messaging APIs. Instant broadcasting and notifications One-to-many fan-out allows live sports scores, news flashes, gaming events or travel alerts to reach every subscriber at once. Collaborative editing Co-authoring documents, shared whiteboards and real-time project boards depend on SignalR to keep all participants in sync. High-frequency data interactions Online games, instant polling/voting and live auctions need millisecond round-trips. Microsoft lists these as canonical "high-frequency data update" scenarios. IoT command-and-control SignalR provides the live metrics feed and two-way control channel that sit between device fleets and user dashboards. The official IoT sustainability blueprint ("Project 15") places SignalR in the visualization layer so operators see sensor data and alerts in real time. Azure SignalR Functionality and Value  Azure SignalR Service is a fully-managed real-time messaging service on Azure, so Microsoft handles hosting, scalability, and load-balancing for you. Because the platform takes care of capacity provisioning, connection security, and other plumbing, engineering teams can concentrate on application features. That same model also scales transparently to millions of concurrent client connections, while hiding the complexity of how those connections are maintained. In practice, the service sits as a logical transport layer (a proxy) between your application servers and end-user clients. It offloads every persistent WebSocket (or fallback) connection, leaving your servers free to execute only hub business logic. With those connections in place, server-side code can push content to clients instantly, so browsers and mobile apps receive updates without resorting to request/response polling. This real-time, bidirectional flow underpins chat, live dashboards, and location tracking scenarios. SignalR Service supports WebSockets, Server-Sent Events, and HTTP Long Polling, and it automatically negotiates the best transport each time a client connects. Azure SignalR Service Modes Relevant for Notifications Azure SignalR Service offers three operational modes - Default, Serverless, and Classic - so architects can match the service’s behavior to the surrounding application design. Default mode keeps the traditional ASP.NET Core SignalR pattern: hub logic runs inside your web servers, while the service proxies traffic between those servers and connected clients. Because the hub code and programming model stay the same, organizations already running self-hosted SignalR can migrate simply by pointing existing hubs at Azure SignalR Service rather than rewriting their notification layer. Serverless mode removes hub servers completely. Azure SignalR Service maintains every client connection itself and integrates directly with Azure Functions bindings, letting event-driven functions publish real-time messages whenever they run. In that serverless configuration, the Upstream Endpoints feature can forward client messages and connection events to pre-configured back-end webhooks, enabling full two-way, interactive notification flows even without a dedicated hub server. Because Azure Functions default to the Consumption hosting plan, this serverless pairing scales out automatically when event volume rises and charges for compute only while the functions execute, keeping baseline costs low and directly tied to usage. Classic mode exists solely for backward compatibility - Microsoft advises choosing Default or Serverless for all new solutions. Azure SignalR Integration with Azure Functions Azure SignalR Service teams naturally with Azure Functions to deliver fully managed, serverless real-time applications, removing the need to run or scale dedicated real-time servers and letting engineers focus on code rather than infrastructure. Azure Functions can listen to many kinds of events - HTTP calls, Event Grid, Event Hubs, Service Bus, Cosmos DB change feeds, Storage queues and blobs, and more - and, through SignalR bindings, broadcast those events to thousands of connected clients, forming an automatic event-driven notification pipeline. Microsoft highlights three frequent patterns that use this pipeline out of the box: live IoT-telemetry dashboards, instant UI updates when Cosmos DB documents change, and in-app notifications for new business events. When SignalR Service is employed with Functions it runs in Serverless mode, and every client first calls an HTTP-triggered negotiate Function that uses the SignalRConnectionInfo input binding to return the connection endpoint URL and access token. Once connected, Functions that use the SignalRTrigger binding can react both to client messages and to connection or disconnection events, while complementary SignalROutput bindings let the Function broadcast messages to all clients, groups, or individual users. Developers can build these serverless real-time back-ends in JavaScript, Python, C#, or Java, because Azure Functions natively supports all of these languages. Azure SignalR Notification-Specific Use Cases Azure SignalR Service delivers the core capability a notification platform needs: servers can broadcast a message to every connected client the instant an event happens, the same mechanism that drives large-audience streams such as breaking-news flashes and real-time push notifications in social networks, games, email apps, or travel-alert services. Because the managed service can shard traffic across multiple instances and regions, it scales seamlessly to millions of simultaneous connections, so reach rather than capacity becomes the only design question. The same real-time channel that serves people also serves devices. SignalR streams live IoT telemetry, sends remote-control commands back to field hardware, and feeds operational dashboards. That lets teams surface company KPIs, financial-market ticks, instant-sales counters, or IoT-health monitors on a single infrastructure layer instead of stitching together separate pipelines. Finally, Azure Functions bindings tie SignalR into upstream business workflows. A function can trigger on an external event - such as a new order arriving in Salesforce - and fan out an in-app notification through SignalR at once, closing the loop between core systems and end-users in real time. Azure SignalR Messaging Capabilities for Notifications Azure SignalR Service supplies targeted, group, and broadcast messaging primitives that let a Platform Engineering Director assemble a real-time notification platform without complex custom routing code. The service can address a message to a single user identifier. Every active connection that belongs to that user-whether it’s a phone, desktop app, or extra browser tab-receives the update automatically, so no extra device-tracking logic is required. For finer-grained routing, SignalR exposes named groups. Connections can be added to or removed from a group at runtime with simple methods such as AddToGroupAsync and RemoveFromGroupAsync, enabling role-, department-, or interest-based targeting. When an announcement must reach everyone, a single call can broadcast to every client connected to a hub.  All of these patterns are available through an HTTP-based data-plane REST API. Endpoints exist to broadcast to a hub, send to a user ID, target a group, or even reach one specific connection, and any code that can issue an HTTP request-regardless of language or platform-can trigger those operations.  Because the REST interface is designed for serverless and decoupled architectures, event-generating microservices can stay independent while relying on SignalR for delivery, keeping the notification layer maintainable and extensible. Azure SignalR Scalability for Notification Systems Azure SignalR Service is architected for demanding, real-time workloads and can be scaled out across multiple service instances to reach millions of simultaneous client connections. Every unit of the service supplies a predictable baseline of 1,000 concurrent connections and includes the first 1 million messages per day at no extra cost, making capacity calculations straightforward. In the Standard tier you may provision up to 100 units for a single instance; with 1,000 connections per unit this yields about 100,000 concurrent connections before another instance is required. For higher-end scenarios, the Premium P2 SKU raises the ceiling to 1,000 units per instance, allowing a single service deployment to accommodate roughly one million concurrent connections. Premium resources offer a fully managed autoscale feature that grows or shrinks unit count automatically in response to connection load, eliminating the need for manual scaling scripts or schedules. The Premium tier also introduces built-in geo-replication and zone-redundant deployment: you can create replicas in multiple Azure regions, clients are directed to the nearest healthy replica for lower latency, and traffic automatically fails over during a regional outage. Azure SignalR Service supports multi-region deployment patterns for sharding, high availability and disaster recovery, so a single real-time solution can deliver consistent performance to users worldwide. Azure SignalR Performance Considerations for Real-Time Notifications Azure SignalR documentation emphasizes that the size of each message is a primary performance factor: large payloads negatively affect messaging performance, while keeping messages under about 1 KB preserves efficiency. When traffic is a broadcast to thousands of clients, message size combines with connection count and send rate to define outbound bandwidth, so oversized broadcasts quickly saturate throughput; the guide therefore recommends minimizing payload size in broadcast scenarios. Outbound bandwidth is calculated as outbound connections × message size / send interval, so smaller messages let the same SignalR tier push many more notifications per second before hitting throttling limits, increasing throughput without extra units. Transport choice also matters: under identical conditions WebSockets deliver the highest performance, Server-Sent Events are slower, and Long Polling is slowest, which is why Azure SignalR selects WebSocket when it is permitted. Microsoft’s Blazor guidance notes that WebSockets give lower latency than Long Polling and are therefore preferred for real-time updates. The same performance guide explains heavy message traffic, large payloads, or the extra routing work required by broadcasts and group messaging can tax CPU, memory, and network resources even when connection counts are within limits, highlighting the need to watch message volume and complexity as carefully as connection scaling. Azure SignalR Security for Notification Systems Azure SignalR Service provides several built-in capabilities that a platform team can depend on when hardening a real-time notification solution. Flexible authentication choices The service accepts access-key connection strings, Microsoft Entra ID application credentials, and Azure-managed identities, so security teams can select the mechanism that best fits existing policy and secret-management practices.  Application-centric client authentication flow Clients first call the application’s /negotiate endpoint. The app issues a redirect containing an access token and the service URL, keeping user identity validation inside the application boundary while SignalR only delivers traffic.  Managed-identity authentication for serverless upstream calls In Serverless mode, an upstream endpoint can be configured with ManagedIdentity. SignalR Service then presents its own Azure identity when invoking backend APIs, removing the need to store or rotate custom secrets.  Private Endpoint network isolation The service can be bound to an Azure Private Endpoint, forcing all traffic onto a virtual network and allowing operators to block the public endpoint entirely for stronger perimeter control. The notification system can meet security requirements for financial notifications, personal health alerts, or confidential business communications and other sensitive enterprise scenarios. Azure SignalR Message Size and Rate Limitations Client-to-server limits Azure imposes no service-side size ceiling on WebSocket traffic coming from clients, but any SignalR hub hosted on an application server starts with a 32 KB maximum per incoming message unless you raise or lower it in hub configuration. When WebSockets are not available and the connection falls back to long-polling or Server-Sent Events, the platform rejects any client message larger than 1 MB. Server-to-client guidance Outbound traffic from the service to clients has no hard limit, but Microsoft recommends staying under 16 MB per message. Application servers again default to 32 KB unless you override the setting (same sources as above). Serverless REST API constraints If you publish notifications through the service’s serverless REST API, the request body must not exceed 1 MB and the combined headers must stay under 16 KB. Billing and message counting For billing, Azure counts every 2 KB block as one message: a payload of 2,001 bytes is metered as two messages, a 4 KB payload as three, and so on. Premium-tier rate limiting The Premium tier adds built-in rate-limiting controls - alongside autoscaling and a higher SLA - to stop any client or publisher from flooding the service. Azure SignalR Pricing and Costs for Notification Systems Azure SignalR Service is sold on a pure consumption basis: you start and stop whenever you like, with no upfront commitment or termination fees, and you are billed only for the hours a unit is running. The service meters traffic very specifically: only outbound messages are chargeable, while every inbound message is free. In addition, any message that exceeds 2 KB is internally split into 2-KB chunks, and the chunks - not the original payload - are what count toward the bill. Capacity is defined at the tier level. In both the Standard and Premium tiers one unit supports up to 1 000 concurrent connections and gives unlimited messaging with the first 1 000 000 messages per unit each day free of charge. For US regions, the two paid tiers of Azure SignalR Service differ only in cost and in the extras that come with the Premium plan - not in the raw connection or message capacity. In Central US/East US, Microsoft lists the service-charge portion at $1.61 per unit per day for Standard and $2.00 per unit per day for Premium. While both tiers share the same capacity, Premium adds fully managed auto-scaling, availability-zone support, geo-replication and a higher SLA (99.95% versus 99.9%). Finally, those daily rates change from region to region. The official pricing page lets you pick any Azure region and instantly see the local figure. Azure SignalR Monitoring and Diagnostics for Notification Systems Azure Monitor is the built-in Azure platform service that collects and aggregates metrics and logs for Azure SignalR Service, giving a single place to watch the service’s health and performance. Azure SignalR emits its telemetry directly into Azure Monitor, so every metric and resource log you configure for the service appears alongside the rest of your Azure estate, ready for alerting, analytics or export. The service has a standard set of platform metrics for a real-time hub: Connection Count (current active client connections) Inbound Traffic (bytes received by the service) Outbound Traffic (bytes sent by the service) Message Count (total messages processed) Server Load (percentage load across allocated units) System Errors and User Errors (ratios of failed operations) All of these metrics are documented in the Azure SignalR monitoring data reference and are available for charting, alert rules, and autoscale logic. Beyond metrics, Azure SignalR exposes three resource-log categories: Connectivity logs, Messaging logs and HTTP request logs. Enabling them through Azure Monitor diagnostic settings adds granular, per-event detail that’s essential for deep troubleshooting of connection issues, message flow or REST calls. Finally, Azure Monitor Workbooks provide an interactive canvas inside the Azure portal where you can mix those metrics, log queries and explanatory text to build tailored dashboards for stakeholders - effectively turning raw telemetry from Azure SignalR into business-oriented, shareable reports. Azure SignalR Client-Side Considerations for Notification Recipients Azure SignalR Service requires every client to plan for disconnections. Microsoft’s guidance explains that connections can drop during routine hub-server maintenance and that applications "should handle reconnection" to keep the experience smooth. Transient network failures are called out as another common reason a connection may close. The mainstream client SDKs make this easy because they already include automatic-reconnect helpers. In the JavaScript library, one call to withAutomaticReconnect() adds an exponential back-off retry loop, while the .NET client offers the same pattern through WithAutomaticReconnect() and exposes Reconnecting / Reconnected events so UX code can react appropriately. Sign-up is equally straightforward: the connection handshake starts with a negotiate request, after which the AutoTransport logic "automatically detects and initializes the appropriate transport based on the features supported on the server and client", choosing WebSockets when possible and transparently falling back to Server-Sent Events or long-polling when necessary. Because those transport details are abstracted away, a single hub can serve a wide device matrix - web and mobile browsers, desktop apps, mobile apps, IoT devices, and even game consoles are explicitly listed among the supported client types. Azure publishes first-party client SDKs for .NET, JavaScript, Java, and Python, so teams can add real-time features to existing codebases without changing their core technology stack. And when an SDK is unavailable or unnecessary, the service exposes a full data-plane REST API. Any language that can issue HTTP requests can broadcast, target individual users or groups, and perform other hub operations over simple HTTP calls. Azure SignalR Availability and Disaster Recovery for Notification Systems Azure SignalR Service offers several built-in features that let a real-time notification platform remain available and recoverable even during severe infrastructure problems: Resilience inside a single region The Premium tier automatically spreads each instance across Azure Availability Zones, so if an entire datacenter fails, the service keeps running without intervention.  Protection from regional outages For region-level faults, you can add replicas of a Premium-tier instance in other Azure regions. Geo-replication keeps configuration and data in sync, and Azure Traffic Manager steers every new client toward the closest healthy replica, then excludes any replica that fails its health checks. This delivers fail-over across regions.  Easier multi-region operations Because geo-replication is baked into the Premium tier, teams no longer need to script custom cross-region connection logic or replication plumbing - the service now "makes multi-region scenarios significantly easier" to run and maintain.  Low-latency global routing Two complementary front-door options help route clients to the optimal entry point: Azure Traffic Manager performs DNS-level health probes and latency routing for every geo-replicated SignalR instance. Azure Front Door natively understands WebSocket/WSS, so it can sit in front of SignalR to give edge acceleration, global load-balancing, and automatic fail-over while preserving long-lived real-time connections. Verified disaster-recovery readiness Microsoft’s Well-Architected Framework stresses that a disaster-recovery plan must include regular, production-level DR drills. Only frequent fail-over tests prove that procedures and recovery-time objectives will hold when a real emergency strikes. How Belitsoft Can Help Belitsoft is the engineering partner for teams building real-time applications on Azure. We build fast, scale right, and think ahead - so your users stay engaged and your systems stay sane. We provide Azure-savvy .NET developers who implement SignalR-powered real-time features. Our teams migrate or build real-time dashboards, alerting systems, or IoT telemetry using Azure SignalR Service - fully managed, scalable, and cost-predictable. Belitsoft specializes in .NET SignalR migrations - keeping your current hub logic while shifting the plumbing to Azure SignalR. You keep your dev workflow, but we swap out the homegrown infrastructure for Azure’s auto-scalable, high-availability backbone. The result - full modernization. We design event-driven, serverless notification systems using Azure SignalR in Serverless Mode + Azure Functions. We’ll wire up your cloud events (CosmosDB, Event Grid, Service Bus, etc.) to instantly trigger push notifications to web and mobile apps. Our Azure-certified engineers configure Managed Identity, Private Endpoints, and custom /negotiate flows to align with your zero-trust security policies. Get the real-time UX without security concerns. We build globally resilient real-time backends using Azure SignalR Premium SKUs, geo-replication, availability zones, and Azure Front Door. Get custom dashboards with Azure Monitor Workbooks for visualizing metrics and alerting. Our SignalR developers set up autoscale and implement full-stack SignalR notification logic using the client SDKs (.NET, JS, Python, Java) or pure REST APIs. Target individual users, dynamic groups, or everyone in one go. We implement auto-reconnect, transport fallback, and UI event handling.