Clera: Giving the Web an Application Layer

Erasmus A. Junior — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 22:43:16 +0000

The Web Platform Can Do More

I have looked at the web platform over the years, the amazing things people have built with it and can build with it. I saw the capability where the web can do a lot but i kept asking myself, “Why are we using all this capability mostly to build websites?”

HTML, CSS and Javascript

Almost every developer knows HTML, CSS and Javascript. Most beginners end up studying web development because they couldn’t move or comprehend languages beyond the web. That made me ask, “If beginners already start here, why don’t we make this step a wider platform?”

Mobile Development

My main focus was mobile application development. When i looked at mobile development I thought, “I’m just trying to develop an application. Why should i have to learn

Kotlin
Java
Android Studio
SwiftUI
everything around those ecosystems

just to build an application? I already know basic web development.

Cross-platform Frameworks

I researched Flutter and React Native. They both have their pros and cons. But React Native wasn't actually the web. It wasn't the syntax I was already familiar with. It still required learning React, JSX, It’s own ecosystem, It’s own tooling, It’s own environment. I wanted something different. I wanted. something vanilla. I wanted HTML to define structure, CSS for presentation, and Javascript for functionality just like i spent months learning in those beginner courses. The same languages most developers started with, the same languages most developers already knew.

Progressive Web Apps

Then I discovered Progressive Web Apps. That was the moment I thought, “Whoa… this existed?”. PWAs looked like the perfect way to build applications using the web. But there was a catch. Service Workers, Configurations, Limitations. Especially on ios. They were close, but no enough. PWAs weren’t the problem. In many ways they proved the web could become an application platform. They simply exposed the limits of the browser sandbox.

Looking at the Industry

I started looking at startups. I would open their websites, Look at what they were build and i noticed something. A lot of these websites were clearly trying to behave like applications. I kept thinking, “This is trying to be an app… but they ended up with a website”. So I kept asking, Why aren’t more people building PWAs? I went to YouTube, Google had tutorials on them, Microsoft talked about them. But they weren’t mainstream. That felt strange and like these I wasn’t trying to commit to Apple’s

The Real Question

Eventually it stopped becoming about PWAs. The real question became, “Why should the web stop at websites?”. Then comes wrappers. Take the PWAs and wrap them in a native shell using Capacitor or Ionic. Well that works and i love that idea but at the end of the day most developers need to build a website first (having the mental model or a web developer not an app developer), take into consideration what makes a good PWA (If they have even heard about it all), handle SPA, service workers, manifest and of course plugins of the wrapper they intend to use.

There is another way tho, learn a framework, use is to build the app and wrap it with a wrapper or go entirely the React Native way, which i respect. But that seems a little far from the basic beginner web mental model. HTML for structure, CSS for presentation and Javascript for functionality.

The Philosophy Begins

The whole idea became, Take the thing every developer already know. HTML, CSS and Javascript. Instead of asking people to leave that behind, expand what it can do. Let it build applications. Not just websites, not just PWAs. Applications…

…And provide the toolings to make these application developments feel less like website development and more like an application development because that is what it will be. Tools like Capacitor solved packaging. I wanted to solve the experience of building the application itself.

What is Clera?

Clera is a platform for building applications using the web stack. At its core is the Clera Runtime, an application layer that extends HTML, CSS and JavaScript beyond websites and Progressive Web Apps into application development.

Around the runtime is Clera Studio, the development environment built to make application development feel like application development, not just website development. Instead of piecing together different tools, configuring service workers, switching between browsers and editors, and solving the same problems repeatedly, Clera bring those experiences together into one workflow.

The runtime focusses of reducing repetitive work while preserving the web’s familiar mental model. Rather than replacing HTML, CSS and JavaScript with a new language or framework, it enhances them with application focused capabilities such as navigation, lifecycle management, reusable templates, hardware integrations, packaging and other features needed to build applications.

The goal is not to replace the web. The goal is to give the web an application layer.

Learn More

If you’d like to explore Clera, follow its development or try it yourself, here are the official links.

Documentation
Github

This is only the beginning of Clera’s journey I hope you’ll enjoy being part of it.

DEV Community: Erasmus A. Junior