SharePoint Apps vs Features
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09-12-2019 - |
Question
SharePoint 2013 supports new kind of Solutions called Apps.According to MSDN, Apps are self contained piece of functionality and easy to install, use and update.
I think SharePoint features also support easy installation and upgrade. A feature can contain self contained functionality like web part or timer job.
Then,What is the difference between Apps and Features or the traditional Solutions (Farm or Sandbox)
Solution
In an app:
- all the SharePoint artifacts you create (lists, pages, files) are located in a special sub site only for that app.
- all the code runs outside the SharePoint servers, can be client site, other servers or Azure
- for the code to access items in the original site/site collection, the app have to specify that in it's manifest and the installing user has to have these permissions and pass them to the app
- one app has absolutely no access to the data of another app
So the advantages for apps are:
- They are really separate from the site where they are installed which makes it easy to uninstall (can remove everything)
- Can't affect perfomance of SharePoint servers
- Can do more than you could in Sandboxed solutions
The disadvantage for apps are:
- Completely new development model, which at least in the beginning will be a lot harder.
- No way to combine apps to work together
OTHER TIPS
This article on MSDN goes into detail, but sums it up succinctly as : "Apps are for end users and farm solutions are for administrators." Sandbox solutions are deprecated with 2013, and generally the sort of thing that you would have previously used a Sandbox solution for should now be an app.