Application streaming is a form of on-demand software distribution. In these scenarios, only essential portions of an application's code need to be installed on the computer: while the end user performs actions in the application, the necessary code and files are delivered over the network as and when they are required.
Application streaming is a related concept to application virtualization, where applications are run directly from a virtual machine on a central server that is completely separate from the local system. By contrast, application streaming runs the program locally, but still involves the centralized storage of application code.