These properties of membraneless protocells thus show their ability to facilitate early chemical reactions and evolution. However, at first inspection, one may assume that membraneless protocells can do all of the things that membrane-bound protocells can, there may be certain properties in which membraneless protocells were less proficient at than membrane-bound ones (such as generating stronger chemical gradients due to a physical membrane vs. a simple boundary), necessitating the eventual emergence of membrane-bound compartments during the emergence of early life.