Should I Build A Website Or Mobile App?

Posted by Neil Ludlow on Tuesday, 21st October 2025

Time to read: 5 minutes

One of the biggest questions any tech founder or business owner will probably ask themselves is whether they need a website, or an app, or both. There's no right or wrong answer, everyone's situation will be different, and every product will have a different purpose and a different use case. What I'm going to do here is talk about a few of the possible thought processes, and at the same time use my favourite mobile app at the moment (Merlin) and a popular website that has both website and app (LinkedIn) as examples.

Reasons to have a Mobile App

The Functionality Is Better Suited to an App

The Merlin app by Cornell Labs is a very good example of an app that should be a mobile app, not a website. How you use it is whenever you hear a birdsong, or some birds chirping, you can open the app and using your phone's microphone listen to the bird sounds. The app then tells you what species of bird it thinks are making those sounds. It also works the same with the camera, you can take a photo of a bird with your phone's camera, and it will tell you which species it is from the photo.

I'm not a bird expert, but it seems to work really well. As long as the background noise is not too high, and the bird is loud enough, the sound is generally recognised by the app. It can be annoying when you can see multiple birds in the sky making noises but the traffic noise is too loud, or if you can see a bird but it isn't making a noise. In that situation, the camera/photo option is a nice backup option and works pretty well too from my experience, although you may struggle is the bird is flying.

The functionality of this app, I'd say is much better suited to an app than it is to a website.

Anchor Users to My Product

LinkedIn is an example of a website, that has a mobile app that people can also use. The desktop version has probably the most functionality, along with the app, but anyone who has tried to use the LinkedIn website on a phone will know that you are constantly getting herded towards the app. Regardless of my opinion on websites or mobile apps, it's clear that Microsoft would rather someone use the app on their phone, rather than the website. I'm sure there are lots of reasons for this, but one reason will be that if you are a LinkedIn user, and you have the app on your phone, you're probably likely to use it more than if you had to go to the website every time.

You could probably say the same or similar things with online shopping such as eBay and Amazon, or other social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.

From a user's point of view, I don't like being manipulated like this, but if you want your product to be at the forefront of someone's mind as often as possible, an app is a good way to do this.

Being On the Stores Makes My App Automatically Follow Local Laws

As a startup, or small business, this is a pretty important one. You may not have a large team spread out all over the world with lawyers in every country. App Store and Play Store will tell me about all the changes in law in every country my app is available in. Websites may sometimes break regulations in different countries.

If I have a website:

• A website will be in every country by default
• If a law changes in any country I may not be aware
• Easy but I may be unaware of local events in different countries

If I have an app:

• I choose which countries my app is available in
• Google and/or Apple will make sure I follow the laws in every country where my app is available
• Can be a lot of hassle

Pre-Built Ecosystem

Once you add your app to the app stores people can immediately find you if they search for your product. Apps on the stores have analytics built-in and users can easily leave reviews. The more downloads and positive reviews you get the better your app will do but you're wired into the ecosystem from the start.

Reasons to have a Website (and not an App)

Websites Can Cost Less Than Mobile Apps

If you have a mobile app, chances are you'll need a website too. Even if it's just a landing page, or somewhere to put your privacy policy, you'll need some kind of web presence. Apps tend to be more expensive than websites, especially as you're probably going to want the app to work on both iOS and Android.

Maybe All I Really Need is a Website

If the functionality you want is fairly basic and able to be done on a website, why not just have a website first? See how the website goes, then if you want to you can branch out to an app later, by which time you'll already have users.

SEO and Marketing can be more Straightforward for a Website

On a very basic level, to promote a website I can just post a URL. Anyone seeing that URL will be able to click on it.

If I want to promote an app, I'll have to send Apple people to one store, and Android people to another store. Maybe I make a special landing page with both stores on it. But then, someone seeing the link may not even be viewing the link on their phone or tablet, so I may be losing potential users before I've begun.

Should You Build a Website or an App?

This is just a general discussion, I can't answer this for you. Not only is there not a right and a wrong, there is more than one way to do anything.

If you think you might want a Mobile App, here is a popular option.

Building the website first, then looking into adding a mobile app later can be more manageable than building both together. If you build your website as a back-end API with a separate front-end, you can probably re-use a lot of the API for the mobile app when you build it. The one caveat is that you should be thinking about this when you start building the website. If you, or the development agency, take the wrong choices when building the API, you may need to either duplicate endpoints, or re-write the endpoints later. But, with careful planning, making sure that everyone understands the plan, you can build a website that can take a lot of work out of a mobile app, should you wish to build it.

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About This Series

This article is part of the Client Survival Guide, a series designed to help business owners and entrepreneurs cut through the jargon and make smarter decisions when working with developers or agencies.

If you'd like guidance on bridging the gap between the technical and non-technical sides of your business, feel free to reach out - this is exactly where I help clients find clarity and confidence.