# Ethereum Clients vs. dApps: Who’s Cooking the Jollof? Who's cooking my food!? Introduction --- Imagine you walk into a buka because you’re craving hot jollof rice or pounded yam😊. You don’t think about the kerosene stove, the smoke in the kitchen, or the sweating chef pounding yam at the back. All you care about is > “Madam, one plate of jollof, add plantain abeg!.” Ethereum Clients = The Kitchen --- Ethereum clients are like the kitchen of a buka. - They keep the pots hot. - They follow the recipe strictly (consensus rules). - They make sure no one cheats. If someone tries to serve you uncooked rice, the kitchen rejects it. There are different types of kitchens (clients): `Geth`, `Nethermind`, `Besu`, `Erigon`. Some use gas, some use firewood, some even use generator stoves, but at the end of the day, they all produce food that follows the same recipe (Ethereum protocol). dApps = The Menu & Waiters --- Now, when you enter the buka, you don’t march into the kitchen yourself. You don’t want pepper smoke in your eye. You look at the menu or call the waiter > “Oga, gimme amala with ewedu!.” That’s exactly what Dapps do. - They give you a nice interface. - They let you “order” transactions without worrying about how the kitchen is sweating to cook. - They make blockchain approachable, like how a laminated menu makes the food look fancy, even though it’s still the same pot of stew in the back. Examples: Uniswap, Aave, Compound, etc. all these are just different menus accessing the same big kitchen. How They Work Together --- If there’s no kitchen, the waiter is just deceiving you. He’ll smile, collect your order, lowkey ask for a tip, but nothing will come out. On the other hand, if there’s a kitchen but no waiter, the food is there but hungry customers may fight to get it. Ethereum works the same way: - Clients (kitchen) = cook and secure everything. - dApps (menu/waiters) = make it easy for you to interact. Without both, your suya is hanging. A dApp simpes uses an Ethereum client to function. Why It Matters --- Las Las, some people just want to eat abeg. they don’t care if the food was cooked with gas, charcoal, or generator. In the same way, users mostly see dApps. But it’s the clients in the background doing the real cooking. Decentralization is like having many kitchens spread across the city: Lagos, Abuja, PH. Even if one buka closes, another is still cooking the same recipe, so no one starves. Conclusion (Las Las) --- Next time you use a dApp, just remember: you’re basically ordering from the menu. The Ethereum client is somewhere at the back, like mama put on a hot Sunday afternoon, making sure your plate of jollof is legit. Takeaway: Ethereum clients = the kitchen. dApps = the menu and waiters. >One without the other? Na scam. > ###### tags: [Analytics Sages](https://analyticsages.io/), [Alpinist Hub](https://alpinisthub.com)