Personally, I'd prefer website to apps. Most apps don't have good reason to be an app over a website other than to better track users (like reddit's app for example). Also, I can easily visit a website from any web browser, but apps need to be installed first.

I think they mean, if it isn't an application but should just be a website. Many things are designed as applications with a lot of behavior, when really they are just documents that would be better structured as a hypertext "site" with linked pages of content.

I really think this should be the first question on a project: Should this be a website or an application? I think the answer to a huge number of technical questions is dependent on the answer to this product question. And it seems like too few people are asking it, and are instead diving straight into making an application (whether web and native).