An Opinion on PWA's (Progressive Web Apps)

While browsing web have you ever got a prompt saying install this site as an app following with some benefits? I got and, in this blog, I am going to discuss about that.

What are PWAs?

A progressive web app or PWA is an app that's built using web platform technologies but provides a user experience similar to that of a native application.

In this blog I will try to state difference between Traditional Websites and Platform-specific Apps and will discuss advantages and disadvantages of PWAs and at last I will provide my conclusion.

Comparison between Traditional Websites and Platform-specific Apps

• Platform-Specific Apps
  • These apps are developed for a specific operating system.
  • They use SDK (System Development Kit).
  • They are distributed through vendor's app store.
• Traditional Websites
  • Accessible via browsers.
  • They lack a presence on the user's device when not actively accessed.

PWAs combine best features from both sides.

As PWA's combine best of both worlds it gains some advantages as well as disadvantages

• Advantages

  • Native-Like Experience: PWAs provide native experience on supporting devices.

  • Adaptability: They adapt to the capabilities supported by each device.

  • Installation: PWAs can be installed directly from the web, and it usually consumes less data and disk storage.

  • Cross-Platform: They work across different browsers and systems with minimal functionality difference. No App Store Required: PWAs don't need users to sign up for any specific store, however some of the PWAs are also available on some app stores.

• Disadvantages

  • At the end still a website: It's true that PWAs provide native like experience but at the end it is still a website.

  • Most of the features requires users to be online: PWAs can provide users some offline features (for example YouTube allows to download videos for offline viewing while using PWA) but most of the features requires users to be online because most of the assets required for functioning of PWAs are stored on cloud.

  • Depends on Browser: PWA's depends heavily on browser therefore it saves all of its data and cache files as browser's data that means if user accidently clears browser's data all of the PWAs' data is gone.

  • Native like experience is not equal to Native experience: What I want to say is when you use both native and progressive web app side by side you will find Native apps way better even in terms of User experience and there are many things that is impossible on a web app that a native app does.

Conclusion

PWAs are nice approach but it is only useful when it is not interacting with system that much for example YouTube doesn't interact with system that much and you can also use it without installing with no issues but, it is not useful when it interacts with system all the time in that case native apps are much better option.

Note

While using some PWAs some of them doesn't work as expected after installing but works great when I use them without installing, I don't know why it happens, but I am having these issues with some specific PWAs and after finding the reason I will edit this blog.

One more thing I want to say is many web developers aren't using PWA or event they are using PWA there are not utilizing it full potential or they just use it to make taskbar and start menu shortcuts.

That's all thanks for reading.