Advantages of the Oracle Application Express Runtime Environment

An Oracle Application Express runtime environment enables you to run production applications, but it does not provide a Web interface for administration or direct development of these applications

Oracle recommends that you run any sensitive production Oracle Application Express applications with a runtime installation of Oracle Application Express. A runtime installation does not expose the Web-based application development environment, thus preventing the use of Application Builder, SQL Workshop, and related utilities on a production installation. Additionally, a runtime environment only includes the Oracle Application Express database objects and privileges necessary to run applications, making it a more hardened environment.