Progressive web apps: when a PWA beats a native app for your business

"We need an app" is one of the most common things business owners tell us. Often what they actually need is a way for customers to book, order, check a status or get a reminder from their phone without friction. Sometimes that's a native app from the App Store. Quite often, a progressive web app does the job for a fraction of the cost.

What is a progressive web app?

A progressive web app (PWA) is a website built so it behaves like an app. You visit it in a browser like any site, but you can also add it to your home screen, where it opens full screen with its own icon, without the browser's address bar. It can keep working with a weak or missing connection, load almost instantly on repeat visits and, on most phones, send push notifications.

Under the hood, three things make a site a PWA: it's served over HTTPS, it has a web app manifest (a small file describing its name, icon and colours), and it uses a service worker, a script that can cache pages and data so the app works offline and loads fast.

What a PWA can do on Android and iPhone

On Android, PWAs are close to first-class citizens. Chrome can prompt people to install them, they appear in the app drawer, and push notifications work much like a native app's. You can even list a PWA in the Google Play Store.

On iPhone and iPad, support has improved a lot but has limits. Since iOS 16.4 (2023), web apps added to the home screen can send push notifications and show badge counts. But the notifications only work after the person adds the app to their home screen, and Safari doesn't show an automatic install prompt. You have to show people how, usually with a short "tap Share, then Add to Home Screen" message. That extra step means fewer iPhone users install a PWA than would download an equivalent App Store app.

Apple's App Store also generally rejects apps that are only a website in a wrapper, so a PWA usually can't be listed there as is.

PWA or native app: how they compare

Cost

A native app usually means building for iOS and Android separately, or using a cross-platform framework, plus a web version for desktop. A PWA is one codebase that works everywhere, including desktop. Updates go live the moment you publish them, with no app store review.

Reach

Anyone with a link can use a PWA immediately. Nobody has to find you in a store, download 80 MB and create an account first. Pages can also be indexed by Google, so a PWA's content can bring in search traffic, which a native app can't.

Discovery

The App Store and Google Play do bring discovery, and some customers trust an app more when it comes from a store. If being found in the app stores matters for your business, that's a point for native.

Device features

Native apps can use everything the phone offers. PWAs can use a lot: camera, location, notifications (with the iPhone caveat above), offline storage, payments through Apple Pay and Google Pay on the web, and sharing. Where they fall short is mostly on iPhone: Bluetooth devices, NFC, heavy background tasks, deep integration with health or home data, and some advanced camera features.

When a PWA is the better choice

• Customer portals for checking orders, job status, invoices or service history.
• Booking and ordering for restaurants, salons, clinics and service companies.
• Internal tools for staff on the road, such as job sheets, inspection checklists, delivery logs and timesheets, especially when coverage is patchy.
• Catalogues and dealer tools that need to work across phones, tablets and office computers.
• A first version of an app idea, to test whether customers use it before investing in native builds.

When you probably need a native app

• The app depends on Bluetooth hardware, NFC, background location tracking or other features iPhones restrict for web apps.
• Push notifications to iPhone users are central to the product and you can't count on people adding it to their home screen.
• App store presence is part of how customers find or trust you.
• You're building something graphics-heavy, like a game or augmented reality.

A middle path

Plenty of businesses start with a PWA and add native apps later, if the numbers justify it. Others build one shared codebase with a framework like React Native or Flutter and ship to both stores. The right answer depends on who your users are, what they need to do and how often. Usage data from a PWA is also the best evidence you can have when deciding whether a native app is worth the investment.

Questions to ask before you build

1. What will people do in the app, and how often?
2. Do they need it offline?
3. Is a notification essential, or just nice to have?
4. Which phones do your customers or staff use? (A mostly-Android field team changes the answer.)
5. Does the app need to talk to your existing systems, such as your accounting, inventory or CRM?

If you'd like help working through those questions, our mobile app development team builds both PWAs and native apps, and our custom software work covers the systems behind them. We'll recommend whichever fits, including the cheaper one.