Progressive Web App (PWA) is a term used to denote a new software development methodology. Unlike traditional applications, progressive web apps are a hybrid of regular web pages and a mobile application. This new application model attempts to combine features offered by most modern browsers with the benefits of mobile experience
It is a set of best practices to make a web application function similar to a desktop or mobile application. The dream is to have an experience so uniform and seamless that the user is unable to tell the difference between a Progressive Web App and a native mobile app.
Why do we need a Progressive Web App?Before we understand why we need a progressive web app, let’s talk about some of the challenges we are facing today with native and web apps.
Slow website load: Do you know how long a user waits to click the “Close X” button if a website is too slow? Three seconds! 53% of users abandon a website if it is too slow.
High friction: People don’t want to install native apps. An average user installs 0 applications in a month.
User engagement: Users spend most of their time in native apps, but mobile web reach is almost three times that of native apps. Hence, most of the users are not actively engaged. However, users are spending 80% of their time on only their top three native apps.
PWAs help solve these problems. There are multiple reasons for using a progressive web app, but here are some of the top capabilities it provides:
Progressive: By definition, a progressive web app must work on any device and enhance progressively, taking advantage of any features available on the user’s device and browser.
All of this is possible through service workers, which are event-driven scripts (written in JavaScript) that have access to domain-wide events, including network fetches. With them, we can cache all static resources, which could drastically reduce network requests and improve performance considerably, too.
Application Shell
The application shell is the minimum HTML, CSS and JavaScript required to power a user interface. A native mobile application includes the application shell as part of its distributable, whereas websites ordinarily request this over the network. Progressive web applications bridge this gap by placing the application shell’s resources and assets in the browser’s cache.
We can’t say that PWA will kill Native Apps in the future. But still there is a growing interest for this approach in the community. PWAs are still in their infancy with a lot of challenges to be addressed. Yet, they have the potential to create a shift in the way the web works.