SharePoint 2013 has brought exciting new features which extend SharePoint Apps as well as Farm solutions. These two are used in different ways, hence the need to know which one to choose depending on the scenario at your disposal. Here is a comparison between the app and farm solutions in SharePoint 2013.
SharePoint 2013 Apps |
SharePoint 2013 Farm Solutions |
| A SharePoint App is a mere user friendly stand-alone computer program that can solve a specific end user problem. | A farm solution is a piece of functionality that extends the abilities of a SharePoint website. The farm administrator is responsible for installing such functionality pieces. |
| SharePoint 2013 Apps code can run in different places. Important thing to remember about SharePoint App is that it always operate by the context of the web browser that they are running on or the hosted platform instead of running in the context of SharePoint server. | These are installed by a farm administrators, to the solution store belonging to a farm. Their point of operation is the SharePoint server. |
| SharePoint hosted Apps cause SharePoint to create a new website referred to as web app. You can store pages, libraries and lists using the web app. | Deployment of a farm solution causes changes to one or more web applications. It can be used in any site collection of the web based applications where it has been deployed |
| Event receivers, custom field types, custom web parts, application pages can be created as SharePoint Apps. | Almost all components can be deployed as farm solutions. |
| Authentication mechanisms depend on where the code of the application is running. Inside SharePoint, authentication is already taken care of. You simply have to use JavaScript and HTML. Inside the cloud, there are two choices for you. You can use the client side code or the server while using cross domain libraries and OAuth respectively. | The components in the solution often run in full trust. |
| Resource allocation can be monitored and allocated accordingly by tenants and administrators. | There are no resource usage and allocation that are placed on Farm solutions. |
Hopefully, the reader will be clear about the differences between Apps and Farm Solution in SharePoint 2013 with respect to Operations, Security and resource allocation.
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