Progressive Web Apps vs Native Mobile Apps

Mobile shopping is already more important to users than shopping from a computer, so it’s natural for merchants to focus more and more on mobile over desktop.

Shops are already optimized for mobile, yet expecting the users to remember to enter your address into their address bar on Safari or Chrome is not as handy as having them tap an icon on their home screen.

So the first thought is to build a mobile app and try to onboard as many customers as possible, but the costs are quite high, as you need to have an app developed for iOS and one developed for Android, preferably compatible with both phones and tablets. Then those apps need to be listed on the app stores and constantly maintained with updates as your business evolves.

So is there an alternative to the complex and expensive solution of native apps? There is, and it’s a technology called PWA (Progressive Web Apps).

What is a PWA?

In short, PWA is a web standard initially proposed by Google, which allows web applications to be added to the home screen just like a native app, work offline, receive push notifications, and even access the phone’s hardware, just like a native app.

Unlike the native application, PWAs don’t need to be listed on the AppStore, the user can install them directly from the browser instead of the app store. It’s also not a separate app, but it uses the same code as your webshop, so no need to maintain multiple solutions.

So are PWAs just better than native apps?

Let’s compare the two and see what the pros and cons are for each solution.

Speed

Native applications can access the phone’s hardware directly, so they have the potential of being faster, but for eCommerce applications it makes no noticeable difference. Both PWAs and native applications, are fast and in essence, offer the same experience.

Add to Home Screen

This is probably the main reason why you as a merchant would be interested in having a mobile app, as it would allow your users to easily and directly access your shop and have an immersive experience without the browser navigation taking up screen space and allowing navigation away from your shop.

Both PWAs and native applications offer the same immersive experience.

But what about install experience? Installing a native app is something all users are already familiar with, but it does require several steps: opening the app store, finding the application, tapping Install, authenticating the request, and then waiting for the download to complete.

On Android, PWAs are even easier to install as the user just needs to tap an Install icon in Chrome and the app is installed. On iOS, the experience is not yet as friendly as it needs the user to use the Share icon in the bar and then select “Add to Homescreen”, but with the proper instructions, it should be no problem.

Push Notifications

On Android, PWAs are on par with native apps and can register to send push notifications.

On iOS, this is not available yet, however, it is expected over time for this support to be added.

Cost & Maintainability

Since PWAs are essentially your website with the implementation of PWA standards, any feature you build into your webshop will automatically be part of the PWA too. There’s also no need to build separate applications, so there’s no additional cost either.

So on this point, PWAs easily take the win.

Discoverability

Since PWAs don’t require listing in the AppStore, they also won’t get discovered there as mobile apps do. However, for shopping apps, it’s quite rare for a user to open the AppStore to look for a shop, so this drawback is quite small.

On Android, using PlayStore’s TWA (Trusted Web Activities), listing a PWA on the PlayStoer is now also possible.

Conclusion

So native apps have an advantage over PWAs when it comes to push notifications (on iOS), but PWAs are easier to install, way less expensive, and easier to maintain, so for eCommerce, we’re comfortable is recommending PWAs over native apps in almost all cases.