What kind of apps are G-Suite marketplace apps?

Question

The chrome web store support 3 different app types: extensions, hosted apps, and packaged apps. Extensions are for apps that have minimal UI and primarily extend the functionality of Chrome. Packaged apps can run in a tab, can access the Chrome API, and run in the background. Hosted apps run in a tab and require an internet connection to load the page from the host.

But what kind of apps does the G-Suite marketplace support? I noticed that apps installed in the marketplace should up differently (i.e. they show up the nav bar launcher when logged in to Google Apps, not in a Chrome tab) so does that mean there are a different app type? And when Chrome removes support for it's hosted and packaged apps does that also affect the same types of apps in the G-Suite marketplace?

Answer 1

Since your question is more about G-Suite apps but it is worth to know little about other things in chrome store as well.

1. Chrome Extensions:

Chrome extensions are tiny applicatons with minimal ui. You can access all the chrome APIs that you need to create an extension. Take a look at the manifest file or jump over to top section to start learning.
Examples: add blockers and save bookmark extensions

2. Chrome Hosted Apps/ Packaged Apps:

These are Standalone apps with full UI. If you want to give users more interaction or if your app is more complicated with multiple views or it does not interact with user visited web pages then you can choose to create a chrome app otherwise go with extension. You can access all the chrome APIs that you need in your application. One thing to note about hosted Apps, they can't access chrome APIs since they hosted on other servers rather than local to user browser. Here is the manifest file or jump over to top section to start learning.
Examples for Packaged Apps: Rest Clients, Hosted Apps: Messenger apps

If you look extension manifest file and apps manifest file they look identical except you explicitly need to specify it as an app.

So what are chrome APIs: In general you want to access users top most visited websites, there you go you have chrome.history API. You need to specify the permissions in your manifest file before you use them.

Before you choose what you want to create take a look at here. It is just a decision logic which explains which fits for you. https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/choosing

3. G-Suite Apps:

Google suite Apps are little add-ons to automate the tasks of Google's 11 Cloud Apps. Those apps are Google Docs, Calendar, Drive, Gmail, Translate, Maps etc.Quick intro here. Since they directly included into google apps so that they can be accessed whenever you use those apps with any browser. You are going to use Javascript (known as App Script here but not much difference) and bunch of google APIs to build your g-suite apps.
Note: They are specifically designed for Google products.

Here are some of your questions:

what kind of apps does the G-Suite marketplace support?
G-Suite apps currently supports product management and education related apps.

I noticed that apps show up the nav bar launcher when logged in to Google Apps, not in a Chrome tab?
Since they are built for google cloud apps they live right inside the apps. You can access them from menu bar. A good example would be a spell checker for docs.

When Chrome removes support for it's hosted and packaged apps does that also affect the same types of apps in the G-Suite marketplace?
As of now, Chrome said they will remove support for in browser chrome apps after mid 2017. But they never told anything about chrome extensions and Google suite apps. So they are safe and Google suite apps are pretty new.