Can you just copy and move app's around?

[Sciuriware]

Hello everybody,
with (too) many years of MSWindows behind me, I'm still puzzled by the
simplicity of the installation and removal of applications in OSX.
But,
recently I had a (free) app that refused to upgrade to a new release on one machine (option greyed out),
while it did the upgrade on another machine. I was too lazy to download the latest version,
so I just removed the old app and copied the upgraded app from the other machine.
Works great.
Now I wonder: can I do that with any app? Just copy it to my laptop instead of downloading
and installing it in Finder?
Are there limitations?
Thanks for answering.
;JOOP!

 

[Partron22]

Many, most even, Apps work this way, but not all.

 

[Sciuriware]

Many, most even, Apps work this way, but not all.

I guess licenced app's are excluded; I can live with that.
Thanks.
;JOOP!