Decentralized applications, commonly abbreviated dApps, are software applications that run on a 🏷️#blockchain or peer-to-peer network of computers rather than on a single server, and that operate outside the control of any single authority.
The architecture borrows from familiar web-app stacks but swaps the trusted backend for an open, on-chain execution layer — most often Ethereum, Solana, or another general-purpose smart-contract platform — paired with peer-to-peer storage layers like IPFS or Arweave. A dApp's front-end may look identical to a centralized web product; what differs is that the backend logic and state live in publicly inspectable contracts, and the underlying tokens, identities, and balances persist independently of the team that built the app.
The category spans finance (DEXes, lending markets, stablecoins), gaming and collectibles (NFT marketplaces, on-chain games), social (Lens, Farcaster), and identity infrastructure. The defining tradeoff is consistent across them: dApps gain censorship resistance, transparency, and composability at the cost of latency, gas fees, key-management UX, and the kinds of soft levers that centralized operators use to fix bugs and reverse fraud.