The Windchill primary client component is a web browser. The widespread availability of low-cost, powerful web browsers, makes it possible to deploy a large, distributed information system with little or no maintenance of individual client hosts.

The ability to display HTML pages, although adequate for simple applications, does not provide enough functionality for all aspects of complex information authoring applications. Therefore, Windchill requires a browser capable of hosting Java applets based on the Java runtime and base classes. Two popular examples are Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Using a web browser as a front-end, allows leveraging of HTTP server capabilities on the back end. For example, HTTP request authentication, designed for controlling access to other web server resources, is used to authenticate access to the Windchill system with the need to license and embed security software into Windchill clients and servers. Instead, rapidly evolving authentication schemes can be used in a manner transparent to the Windchill system, giving you more freedom to manage your Web security infrastructure as you see fit.

A web browser front end also allows you to leverage built-in file download and upload capabilities and the launching of helper applications and plug-ins.