Progressive Web Apps vs Native Apps: What Should You Build?
Life teaches you things. And this was proved in regards to a Progressive Web App.
John is a teenager who needs a device with a larger screen, a fully functional keyboard, and a desktop OS for studying.
His dad did the obvious and took him to the nearby tech store to buy him a small laptop with a fully functioning Windows 11 operating system.
This is where the story of PWAs and Native apps became clear to John. Read this post to understand it and decide which app between them you’ll choose to make for the mobile platform.
And if you need extra assistance, choose a mobile app development company today without wasting time on it.
John loves YouTube (who doesn’t?)
Now that he had his new laptop, he logged in to the device, downloaded the games he played, and the apps he used…
Well, the process didn’t go smoothly for him as planned.
You see, like many other people, he straight up went to the Windows store and downloaded the YouTube app. To his surprise, there was no such app in the Windows Store.
Surprised and a bit worried about third-party app issues, he tried downloading the .exe file for YouTube for Windows but didn’t get as many trustworthy search results as he expected.
Google gave him a solution with a Progressive Web App (PWA) for YouTube.
According to the web search, he found that YouTube does not have a dedicated native app of its own. But you can use the browser to download it from the menu options as a Progressive Web App, or a PWA.
With the PWA, John got a separate app for his laptop, despite its absence in the app store or the form of a package installer. This PWA ran YouTube as a desktop app, which seemed quite surprising, provided it wasn’t made natively for Windows.
However, the PWA is downloaded into the browser’s environment instead of being downloaded as a separate app. Using a prompt or a browser icon in the browser’s interface, PWAs are downloaded as fully functioning apps on your device.
In fact, these apps use browser-specific APIs to help you access them offline, get notifications, and more.
Does it mean we don’t need a native YouTube app? We do (like we have in the Android platforms).
Let us learn about what exactly PWA and native apps are and what they can help us do to decide whether to make one for mobile platforms like iOS and Android.
Understanding PWA and Native Apps in Recent Times
Let’s understand the difference between these two apps simply with the context you find below:
Did you know that downloading a Progressive Web App, or a PWA, means it can run this app on any device?
While that’s the case with PWA apps, native apps work differently. They are supposed to run particularly with OS-specific platforms like Android or iOS.
Therefore, the definition of PWAs is that these are apps that you can download through the browser as a standalone app for any device you’re using the browser.
Although it’s dependent on the browser for the download, the app installs on your device as a standalone application with almost all of its features and functions. PWAs, although made by web technologies like CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, offer the user the same experience as native apps.
To define native apps, one must look at the compatibility of the app with a specific operating system. They are developed natively for an operating system, and doing so ensures maximum compatibility between the operating system and the app.
Generally, you can find these apps on the app store of an OS. Because it is made particularly for an OS, the native apps are closer to the hardware, and therefore, developers can optimize them well for better performance.
Both these types of applications open up new doors and opportunities for your business. If you consider building them with custom mobile app development services, then you might target achieving certain benefits with them.
To choose developing one of them, we need to learn about their use cases and differences in many areas.
PWA vs Native Apps: A Comparison for You to Select One (or Both)
Below, you can find a comparison between PWAs and native mobile apps based on a few parameters.
Performance
PWAs retain almost all of the native app functionality and perform well because they are made lightweight. This is why startups and entrepreneurs find pleasure in using them across all platforms. Thanks to these lightweight features, developing a PWA is easy.
A native app is considered a productivity beast because it is designed and developed to be as feature-rich as possible. However, due to its heavy resource needs, developing it requires more attention.
Functionality
If you make a PWA for your client, then you ensure a lightweight app with full speed and nearly all functionalities of native apps. However, the access of the PWA to geolocation features, file management systems, and more might be limited.
In a native app, you give users the facility of accessing device-specific hardware and properties like GPS, camera, Bluetooth, and more.
Time for Developing the App
By nature, PWAs are flexible apps, and that, therefore, means they are made quite flexibly. Thanks to web development technologies to use these apps, it doesn’t take much time or resources to make these apps.
Native apps are rooted in the hardware, and they are made to give the user more features. To keep these factors in the native app, you need more time and resources to develop it.
Accessibility Factors
This is where PWAs take the lead. You develop a PWA for your client, and anyone from any device can access it.
With a native app, though, you are supposed to design and develop it for a specific OS. Therefore, you may target a niche audience with a native app better than a PWA.
SEO and Discoverability
PWAs are made with web development technologies, which means search engines can index them. It may help you increase the visibility of your company online.
You cannot get your native app indexed in a search engine. For this, you might need to opt for a separate service called App Store Optimization or ASO.
User Engagement
Both PWAs and native apps can engage users in specific ways. PWAs can send notifications, but it depends on what the user has set in his or her browser.
On the other hand, thanks to the feature-heavy nature of native apps and more granular control over notifications, you engage users quite strongly with a native app.
Cost
You might have guessed it already if you’ve considered the resources and features of mobile app development regarding these two kinds of apps. Due to the lightweight nature of web technologies used in PWA development, costs are low. However, native apps require more resources, expertise, and technologies for development, which points towards higher costs.
Cons of PWA and Native Apps
PWAs are not as powerful and rooted to hardware as native apps. A few such downsides of them are:
Although secure, PWAs can be susceptible to web attacks due to the web technologies they are made of (issues like browser-based vulnerabilities, incorrect HTTPS implementation, etc., can create security issues).
You don’t get to find PWAs in the app store, which is a major downside.
A few PWAs might fail to engage users due to a variety of aspects (such as fewer features and the presence of the same app natively).
Of course, native apps are not perfect, and they come with disadvantages that some users do not like. You may find a few of them below:
They are costly to develop and may cost a little more for the users as well.
The TTM factor (Time to Market) for native apps is slow because it takes more time and resources to build one of them.
Native apps need more updates to work, and some apps may even cease working if the latest updates aren’t installed.
Due to being close to the hardware, most native apps require more storage.
What Should You Choose Between PWA and Native Apps? The Verdict
As soon as you are ready with your decision about developing PWA or native apps, you can immediately talk to one of the mobile app development services and get to work.
If you want to target users who want to use your app online, for more media-centric content access, and who want a lightweight solution, then you might want to work with PWAs. As mentioned earlier, PWAs are pretty popular with startups.
However, if you’re targeting users who indulge in heavy productivity tasks, then making a feature-rich, functional native app is relevant.
At the end of the day, learning about your target audience and their app-usage facts and statistics matters more than the developer’s choice. Therefore, to make a sound decision about whether or not to make PWAs or native apps, do more market research.
To Conclude: Make an Exceptional PWA or Native App at Low Rates with Us
Choosing between PWA and native apps is difficult. However, it can become easy when you are working with a mobile app development company in the US. A team of professional mobile app developers can help you more with this aspect and offer you robust solutions, which are designed to get you multiple benefits at a constant rate.
We are known to our clients for our high-performance mobile apps that also don’t fail at user engagement. Whether it is a PWA or a native app for Android, iOS, we are here to make it for you uniquely.
Boost customer engagement and stand out from your competitors with our innovative but functional mobile apps. Along with developing this app, we are here to provide end-to-end maintenance and support to ensure flawless performance and discoverability.
Let us know how you want your app made, and we can take care of the process from the concept design to launching the app without compromises.
Known as Mindfire Solutions, we promise you top-tier solutions in the field of mobile application development.
We understand the needs of modern businesses, and this is why we have kept our services economical too.
Want to build an app with us and see how it works? We can explain it to you with a free quote.
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