alt Hacker NewsThey're also ubiquitous for creative works, i.e. the sort of things a small set of people spend much time on, but is not something most people use. Examples:
- CAD / ECAD
- Artist/photos
- Musician software. Composing, DAW etc
- Scientific software of all domains, drug design etcReplies
Slicers for people doing 3D printing too (don't know if webapp slicers are more common than desktop app slicers though).
Desktop publishing.
Brokerage apps (some are webapps but many ship an actual desktop app).
And yet, to me, something changed: I still "install apps locally", but "locally" as in "only on my LAN", but they can be webapps too. I run them in containers (and the containers are in VMs).
I don't care much as to whether something is a desktop app, a GUI or a TUI, a webapp or not...
But what I do care about is being in control.
Say I'm using "I'm Mich" (immich) to view family pictures: it's shipped (it's open source), I run it locally. It'll never be "less good" than it is today: for if it is, I can simply keep running the version I have now.
It's not open to the outside world: it's to use on our LAN only.
So it's a "local" app, even if the interface is through a webapp.
In a way this entire "desktop app vs webapp" is a false dichotomy, especially when you can have a "webapp (really in a browser) that you can self-host on a LAN" and then a "desktop app that's really a webapp (say wrapped in Electron) that only works if there's an Internet connection".
Adobe Photoshop, the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editing, is was first example of a perfectly fine commercial desktop application converted to cloud application with a single purpose - increased profit for Adobe.