# Client (computing)

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Piece of software accessing a server service

A [computer network diagram](/source/Computer_network_diagram) of client computers communicating with a [server computer](/source/Server_(computing)) via the [Internet](/source/Internet)

In [computing](/source/Computing),[1] a **client** is a piece of [computer hardware](/source/Computer_hardware) or [software](/source/Software) that accesses a service made available by a [server](/source/Server_(computing)) as part of the [client–server model](/source/Client%E2%80%93server_model) of [computer networks](/source/Computer_network). The server is often (but not always) on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network.[1]

A client is a [program](/source/Computer_program) that, as part of its operation, relies on sending a request to another program or a computer hardware or software that accesses a service made available by a server (which may or may not be located on another computer).[2] For example, [web browsers](/source/Web_browser) are clients that connect to [web servers](/source/Web_server) and retrieve [web pages](/source/Web_page) for display.[2] [Email clients](/source/Email_client) retrieve [email](/source/Email) from [mail servers](/source/Mail_server). [Online chat](/source/Online_chat) uses a variety of clients, which vary on the chat protocol being used. [Multiplayer video games](/source/Multiplayer_video_game) or [online video games](/source/Online_video_game) may run as a client on each computer.[2] The term "client" may also be applied to computers or devices that run the client software or users that use the client software.

A client is part of a client–server model, which is still used today. Clients and servers may be computer programs run on the same machine and connect via inter-process communication techniques. Combined with [Internet sockets](/source/Internet_socket), programs may connect to a service operating on a possibly remote system through the [Internet protocol suite](/source/Internet_protocol_suite). Servers wait for potential clients to initiate connections that they may accept.

The term was first applied to [devices](/source/Peripheral_device) that were not capable of running their own stand-alone programs, but could interact with remote computers via a network. These [computer terminals](/source/Computer_terminal) were clients of the [time-sharing](/source/Time-sharing) [mainframe computer](/source/Mainframe_computer).

## Types

Client types and their features Relies on local storage Relies on local CPU Fat client Yes Yes Diskless node No Yes Thin client No No

In one classification, client computers and devices are either [thick clients](/source/Thick_client), [thin clients](/source/Thin_client), or [diskless nodes](/source/Diskless_node).

### Thick

Main article: [Thick client](/source/Thick_client)

A *thick client*, also known as a *rich client* or *fat client*, is a client that performs the bulk of any data processing operations itself, and does not necessarily rely on the server. The [personal computer](/source/Personal_computer) is a common example of a fat client, because of its relatively large set of features and capabilities and its light reliance upon a server. For example, a computer running an [art program](/source/Art_software) (such as [Krita](/source/Krita) or [Sketchup](/source/Sketchup)) that ultimately shares the result of its work on a network is a thick client. A computer that runs almost entirely as a standalone machine save to send or receive files via a network is by a standard called a [workstation](/source/Workstation).

### Thin

Main article: [Thin client](/source/Thin_client)

A thin-client computer

A *thin client* is a minimal sort of client. Thin *clients* use the resources of the host computer. A thin client generally only presents processed data provided by an [application server](/source/Application_server), which performs the bulk of any required data processing. A device using [web application](/source/Web_application) (such as [Office Web Apps](/source/Office_Web_Apps)) is a thin client.[3]

### Diskless node

A *diskless node* is a mixture of the above two client models. Similar to a fat client, it processes locally, but relies on the server for storing persistent data. This approach offers features from both the fat client (multimedia support, high performance) and the thin client (high manageability, flexibility). A device running an online version of the video game [Diablo III](/source/Diablo_III) is an example of diskless node.

## References

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-:0_1-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-:0_1-1) Zacker, Craig T. (2009). [*Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration*](https://books.google.com/books?id=JDxxDwAAQBAJ&q=%22Client%22+computing+-wikipedia&pg=PA280). Microsoft Official Academic Course. John Wiley & Sons. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-470-22513-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-470-22513-4).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-:2_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-:2_2-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-:2_2-2) ["client/server"](https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/clientserver). *PCMag Encyclopedia*. Retrieved 8 November 2022.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-:1_3-0)** Baratto, Ricardo A.; Kim, Leonard N.; Nieh, Jason (20 October 2005). "THINC: A virtual display architecture for thin-client computing". [*Proceedings of the twentieth ACM symposium on Operating systems principles*](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1095810.1095837). Sosp '05. Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 277–290. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1145/1095810.1095837](https://doi.org/10.1145%2F1095810.1095837). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9781595930798](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781595930798). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [723321](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:723321).

v t e Peer-to-peer file sharing Networks, protocols Centralized Direct Connect Soribada Soulseek XDCC Decentralized BitTorrent DAT eDonkey FastTrack Fopnu Hyphanet GNUnet Gnutella Gnutella2 I2P IPFS Kad LBRY OpenFT OnionShare Perfect Dark Retroshare Share Tribler WebTorrent WinMX Winny ZeroNet Historic Audiogalaxy CuteMX Hotline Kazaa LimeWire Morpheus Napster Scour Usenet WASTE Comparisons of clients Advanced Direct Connect BitTorrent Direct Connect Gnutella Gnutella2 WebTorrent Hyperlinks eD2k Magnet Metalink Uses Backup Broadcatching Disk sharing Game and video sharing Image sharing Music sharing Peercasting Seedboxes Sharing software Web hosting (Freesite, IPFS, ZeroNet) Legal aspects Concepts Privacy Anonymous P2P Darknet Darkweb Friend-to-friend Open music model Private P2P Tor Internal technologies Distributed hash table Merkle tree NAT traversal Peer exchange BitTorrent protocol encryption SHA-1 SHA-2 Super-seeding BitTorrent tracker UDP hole punching Micro Transport Protocol

v t e Content aggregators Client software Standalone Akregator BlogBridge Feedreader Flipboard Genieo Google Currents Google News Liferea NetNewsWire Newsbeuter NewsFire QuiteRSS RSS Bandit RSS Guard RSSOwl Seesmic Web browsers AOL Explorer Basilisk Camino iCab Chrome (Android) Firefox Flock GNOME Web Internet Explorer K-Meleon Kazehakase Maxthon Microsoft Edge Netscape Browser Netscape Navigator 9 OmniWeb Opera Otter Browser Pale Moon Safari SeaMonkey Shiira Sleipnir Tencent Traveler Vivaldi Waterfox Email clients Apple Mail Claws Mail Gnus HCL Domino Microsoft Outlook Mozilla Thunderbird Netscape Messenger 9 Pegasus Mail The Bat! Windows Live Mail Zimbra Plugins Cooliris Web apps or mobile apps Bloglines CommaFeed Daylife Digg Reader Drupal Feedbin Feedly FriendFeed Google News Google Reader iGoogle dotCMS Imooty.eu Inoreader LinkedIn Pulse Magnolia My Yahoo! News360 NewsBlur NewsBreak Netvibes Pageflakes Planet Rojo.com Prismatic Spokeo The Old Reader Tiny Tiny RSS TweetDeck WebGUI Windows Live Personalized Experience winnowTag Media aggregators Podcast client Adobe Media Player Akregator Amarok Flock Apple Podcasts Juice MediaMonkey Miro Rhythmbox Songbird Winamp Zune RSS + BitTorrent BitLord BitTorrent 6 Deluge Miro qBittorrent Tribler μTorrent Vuze Related articles Comparison of feed aggregators History of media aggregation RSS enclosure Italics indicate discontinued software.

v t e Download managers Client software for downloading computer files Microsoft Windows Freeware FlashGet Free Studio RealDownloader Video DownloadHelper Xunlei Shareware DownloadStudio Freemake Video Downloader GetRight Go!Zilla Internet Download Manager Malware Orbit Downloader Unix-like KGet Multi-platform ClipGrab cURL DownThemAll! FlashGot Free Download Manager JDownloader MediathekView Wget youtube-dl Related articles Comparison of download managers Metalink

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Client (computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_(computing)) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_(computing)?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.