What is a Progressive Web App (PWA)?

Imagine a solution that allows you to provide a great mobile user experience, that is performant, cost effective and doesn’t require development across three different platforms. That’s what PWAs are all about. Picture it as a combination of best sides of native mobile apps and websites.

Progressive Web App is basically a website or a web app that looks like a mobile app, allowing you to harness the benefits of both solutions. Not to mention it works smoothly across all mobile platforms. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But there’s even more in PWAs than that!Let’s take a closer look at the technical side of PWA, to better understand the logic behind it:

Users visit your website (build with standard tools such as HTML5, CSS, JavaScript) for a number of times, so the browser identifies them as interested in your content. As soon as they meet default criteria of your choice, the browser invites them to keep the website saved as an app on the home screen of their smartphone. Now they can revisit the website any time, which stays responsive, performant and available offlineto some extent. Nothing simpler than reusing the code from your websiteto deliver a mobile experience. Neat!

In comparison with native applications, you get a cross-platform solution thatis not distributed via app stores, but via web.  No download is required to provide users with a solution that includes push notifications and is not reliable on any mobile platform (remember what happened to Nokia, Blackberry or Windows Phones?). PWAs are indexable by Google, doesn’t require additional downloading from the store for updates and consume significantly less data of the smartphone. Higher user engagement and improved reliability come included. How handy is that!

Why are PWAs so popular? Because they work!
And for a number of other benefits.

Progressive Web apps are a combination of the best features of native mobile apps and websites, that boost engagement of users and result in increased revenue. With the amount of significant benefits that come with PWA, you’ll quickly notice the difference.

Take a look at the PWA magic:

You gain independence from mobile types and systems

PWAs are web based, so they work on any operating system (iOS, Android) on any device. Progressive Web Apps are simply future-proof and don’t depend on trends or market situation of given provider.

You can release your service faster and sooner collect feedback from the market

PWAs are deployed directly, so if you plan to update your app, there is no need to download it from the app store again. Not to mention you don’t have to wait for Play Market or App Store to approve the update.

You gain access to wider promotion methods

PWAs are linkable and shareable, that means users can share them with friends as easy as via sending the link.

Your users will be able to access your app despite being offline

PWAs will work regardless the speed of internet connection and even without web access at all. That allows your users to engage and consume your content anytime, anywhere.

You can send push notifications

Unlike a standard web app, PWA is able to deliver push notifications straight on the lock screen of users’ smartphones, re-engaging them with your app.

You can enjoy the native app experience

PWAs provide smooth user experience and are responsible across screens, platforms and browsers. Thanks to that, your content will always find a way to reach new users.

You can build your online presence

In comparison to native apps, PWAs are SEO-friendly, which means they are indexed by Google Search Engine just like any other website. That helps you turn up the volume and facilitates finding your services by prospective customers.

Your app can perform better

With decreased data usage PWAs are lighter, quicker and smoother. That’s why their bounce rate is limited, and the conversion rates are peaking.

What is more, PWAs are also beneficial from the developers’ point of view. One database instead of three, faster creation, easier maintenance – no wonder Progressive Web Apps continue to gain grounds!

Does PWA fit your business?
More than you think.

If you aim to reduce the costs related to customer acquisition, would like to reduce blockers such as considerable processing power required to use your appand at the same time don’t need features that are specific to just one mobile platform, then PWAs are just for you. Especially, if you already have a mobile-friendly, responsive website.

Progressive Web Apps are a perfect match for your businessif you aim to create an e-commerce platform or a marketplace, that will promote content consumption and sharing. It is also great tool for any social media, travel and real estate apps or any management solutions. Why not give it a go?

Planning for the future? Leaders are there.

If you’re looking for a proof that Progressive Web Apps actually do the job, then look no more. Internet leaders of many sectors have already implemented PWA. Examples? Twitter, Forbes, Pinterest, AliExpress, Uber, Housing.com. Sound familiar? Take a look at some hard results, and just trust the numbers:

Twitter

Bounce rate decreased by 20%, number of pages per session increased by 65%.

Pinterest

Increase of Pins seen by 401%, decrease of page load from 490kb to 190kb.

Alibaba

Conversion rate increased by 104%, doubled pages viewed per session

Tinder

Decrease of 90% weight in comparison to the native app. Loading time reduced from 11.91 to 4.69 seconds.

…your turn?

Impressive, isn’t it? Just imagine what results you will achieve.

Take the NEXT STEP in the development of your SERVICE

Environments and tools we use to deliver outstanding PWAs

Laravel

Laravel is an open-source PHP framework used to configure local PHP environment. Caching, routing, sessions, authentication – Laravel does it all, smoothly and in no-time. Laravel is modern and artisan at the same time and developers love it for its ease of combining elegant syntax and built-in solutions, especially handy when building a PWA.

Angular

Open-source, Google-made, used to build webpages, web and desktop apps – that’s Angular, a JavaScript framework. It adds dynamism in coding, making your PWA available even sooner. As it extends HTML with new attributes and simultaneously limits JavaScript code necessary, Angular is perfect to create cutting-edge apps.

Vue

When developing in JavaScript, Vue.js is recently the number one choice in terms of frameworks, especially for robust and performant solutions such as PWAs. Development in Vue is fast, smooth and allows for flexibility. Scalability, progressiveness, adaptability – that’s what Vue is valued for.

Lighthouse

Made by Google, Lighthouse is an open-source tool that improves quality of web apps and is used to determine whether your web solution is ready to evolve to a PWA. Lighthouse willmonitor given criteria of your website, perform audits and suggest solving problems that will increase the overall rating of the web app.

Workbox

Workbox is another Google tool that aims to boost performance of your web app and to make it easier to create PWAs. It is a collection of libraries used to generate a service worker, for precaching and runtime-catching. And if you’d like to include Google Analytics to your service worker, then Workbox will do the job.

our POLISH OFFICE

Develop Progressive Web App solution with Asper Brothers. Why? With more than 10 years on the market and far more than 100 successful projects delivered on time, within the budget and meeting stakeholders’ specifications, we are the first choice in terms of PWA development.

Schedule a meeting in our office in Warsaw, or catch up by phone or online.

Warszawa Zlota 44

Jana Pankiewicza 1/3

00-696 Warsaw, Poland

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