clientheavy

Clientheavy is a designation used in software architecture to describe systems in which a substantial portion of application logic, processing, and state management is executed on the client side rather than on the server. The term is typically used in discussions of web, mobile, and distributed applications to contrast with server-heavy or server-centric designs.

Key characteristics include reliance on client hardware and runtime environments, thin or stateless servers that provide data storage, APIs, and services, and an emphasis on responsive, interactive user interfaces. Clientheavy systems often employ rich client frameworks, local storage, and asynchronous communication to minimize round-trips to the server. They may support offline operation and complex presentation logic.

Benefits include reduced load on back-end services, improved latency for user interactions, and easier horizontal scaling of servers. Drawbacks include security concerns, greater distribution of business logic, versioning and maintenance challenges across clients, potential inconsistencies in data state, and dependence on client device capabilities and connectivity.

In practice, clientheavy designs appear in single-page applications and progressive web apps that perform substantial rendering and validation in the browser, desktop applications with local databases, and mobile apps that cache data and run offline. It is often considered in contrast to server-heavy architectures that centralize processing and data integrity on the server.