Web App Development
What is a web application, and what does Entrivis build?
Web app development at Entrivis means custom applications people log into and operate: customer portals, internal tools, full operational platforms, and the products we build and run ourselves. We build on Next.js, Supabase, and Convex, self-hosted where it matters, and we stay responsible for the application after it goes live.
The distinction from a website is not size. It is what the thing does. A website explains a business. A web application is where the business happens: an order gets placed, a patient record gets updated, a payout gets approved.
When software carries that kind of weight, how it is built and who keeps it running matter more than how it looks.
Four kinds of application, and they rarely arrive alone
Customer and partner portals
Where a customer, vendor, or partner logs in to see their own account, orders, or usage. When that fits inside Odoo’s own portal, it belongs with Odoo implementation. When it needs its own login model, its own data, or an interface Odoo’s portal cannot express, it belongs here.
Internal tools
Software your own team runs on. The operations screen, the approval queue, the dashboard that finally replaces the spreadsheet nobody trusts. Built to do one job the packaged software does badly or not at all.
Operational platforms
The whole operating surface of a business, built as one application: records, orders, inventory, fulfilment, billing, and the public site, on one data model. This is the largest thing on the page, and the one that most needs to be built by people who will still be reachable afterwards.
Our own products
Three of these we built for ourselves, and they have customers: VisaCRM, Protowrit, and Law Firm Management. They are the clearest evidence of what we build, because we live with the consequences of how we built them.
Where the hard part is the logic rather than the interface, a pricing engine, a reconciliation process, a data model with real rules, that work sits with custom software, and most engagements involve both.
Web app, custom software, or portal: where the work actually belongs
These three overlap enough that the labels stop helping. The line we actually draw is about where the hard part of the job sits.
- A front end people log into and work in
- Web App Development (this page)
- The business logic, data model, or processing behind it
- Custom software
- A customer login that fits inside Odoo
- Odoo implementation
- An app someone installs from a store
- Mobile app development
- The site that explains the business
- Website & Brand
Most real engagements are two or three of these at once. A platform we built recently needed a customer-facing front end, a wallet with a running profit balance, and payout logic with rules no packaged system modelled. The front end was web app work. The wallet and the payouts were custom software. We do not make clients buy those as separate projects, but we do tell them which part is which, because the risk lives in different places.
Work that shipped
The strongest proof we can offer is the software we run ourselves.
VisaCRM
Immigration consultancy CRM, from lead to visa process. Ours, live, in daily use.
VisaCRM →Protowrit
Protocol authoring and management, built on Odoo. Ours, and in use by the teams it was built for.
Protowrit →Law Firm Management
Practice management for law firms: matters, documents, and billing in one system.
Law Firm Management →A custom operational platform
Built recently for a client moving off a packaged ERP. One application carrying their records, orders, inventory, course delivery, a wallet with a running balance, and payout handling, with the public site in front of it. The kind of system that only works if the people who built it are still reachable after launch.
What it runs on, and who keeps it running
We build on Next.js, Supabase, and Convex. We run it on infrastructure we manage, or on a managed platform where that is the right call, decided on the application rather than on habit. A customer-facing application that goes down at 2am is not a ticket you want to be filing with someone else.
Building the application is the part everyone quotes for. Running it afterwards is the part that decides whether it was worth building. We stay responsible for deployment, monitoring, and the fixes that only surface once real users are on it. This is the same reason the Product Engineering pillar exists: software that carries operations-critical weight needs an owner past go-live, not a handover email.
The market is full of teams who will build you a web application and disappear. The bill for that arrives later, when something breaks and the person who understood the code is already gone.
How a web application engagement runs
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01
Decide what it is
Before anything gets built, we settle whether this is a web app, custom software, a portal, or a mix, because each carries risk in a different place. Getting this wrong at the start is the expensive mistake on this kind of project.
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02
Model the data first
The data model comes before the interface. An application built interface-first ends up with a data model that fights every feature added after launch.
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03
Build in the open
You see it working while it is being built, not at a reveal. Software that surprises the client at handover was built for the wrong person.
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04
Integrate and harden
The application gets connected to whatever it has to talk to, and put under the conditions real use will create, before real users arrive.
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05
Run it past go-live
Deployment, monitoring, and standing responsibility for what happens after launch. How that relationship is structured is set out on engagement models.
What is the difference between a website and a web application?
A website explains a business. A web application is where the business happens: people log in and do work that changes real data. The difference is what the software does, not how big it is.
What do you build web applications on?
Next.js, Supabase, and Convex, on infrastructure we manage or a managed platform, depending on what the application needs.
Can you build a customer portal?
Yes. If the portal fits inside Odoo’s own capabilities, we build it there as part of an Odoo implementation. If it needs its own login, its own data, or an interface Odoo’s portal cannot express, we build it as a web application.
Do you build the mobile app as well?
We do, in-house. Anything that ships as an installable app is covered on mobile app development. Many engagements need both a web application and an app, and we build them together.
Who runs the application after it launches?
We can. Deployment, monitoring, and post-launch fixes are part of how we work, not a separate contract you chase later.
How is this different from custom software?
Web app development is the front end people log into and work in. Custom software is the logic and data underneath it. Most projects involve both, and we tell you which part is which.
Tell us what the application has to do
Who logs in, what they do once they are in, and what happens if it goes down. That tells us what to build and how to run it.