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id: what-is
title: What are Web3 Apps? 
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Web3 Applications - also known as decentralized apps (dApps) - leverage [smart contracts](../2.smart-contracts/what-is.md) and blockchain data to offer **transparency**, **security** and **giving back control** to users over their assets and data.

![img](/docs/assets/welcome-pages/examples.png)

NEAR simplifies building Web3 apps for the general public, making it easy to **interact** with different blockchains, while helping to **onboard users** that are not familiarized with crypto.

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### Why Integrating NEAR to your App?
Any application can benefit from integrating NEAR, including games, financial services, social platforms, and more.

- **Easy Onboarding**: Users can create accounts using familiar methods such as email login. Furthermore, applications can cover all transactional costs for their users, so they never have to worry about handling crypto.

- **Ownership**: Users have true ownership of digital assets within their accounts. Fungible Tokens can be used as reward systems, Non-Fungible Tokens can denote holdings, and wallets can represent digital identities.

- **Fast, Cheap and Scalable**: Near’s efficient consensus mechanism and fee model make transactions cost effective for both users and developers.

- **Security & Transparency**: All transactions and data on the blockchain is transparent and auditable, thus ensuring trust in the application’s behavior.

