Office add-in development: VSTO or web-based app using Napa?

Question

My company has a plan to develop an add-in for Outlook that can interact with our web-based internal ERP application or our database to retrieve and update data.

I have done some studies on this topic and found that there're 2 approaches available:

1. Using Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) that can leverage .NET language such as C# to develop an add-in that can be installed to local computer like an assembly.
2. Develop a web-based application using Napa or Visual Studio: this kind of add-in can run on both Outlook desktop and web application as well as can be published to Office store.

But I am still confused of the pros and cons of each approach and have not decided yet. Does anybody have experience on this and give me some advice? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It depends on your goals - what exactly you need to implement in Outlook. I'd suggest starting from the Selecting an API or technology for developing solutions for Outlook article. Mail Apps API is still very limited.