Native Apps vs. PWAs: Who Is Going To Be The Winner?

There is no dearth of twists and turns in the technology world. Everyday new technologies, methodologies, approaches, tools and strategies make it more difficult for the outdated ones to survive. While it took more than a decade for the audio cassettes and VHS to get outdated by the DVDs. But it took far less than a decade for online streaming platforms to throw tough challenges to CDs and DVDs. 

With the passing of every year, the evolution in the world of technology is getting speedier only to make things outdated too soon with something more sophisticated. This is how the ever growing dominance of native apps was challenged by the Progressive Web Apps (PWA). 

If you look at the present stats regarding mobile apps, such claims will only look groundless. As per the survey of eMarketer.com, native apps still account for the 90% of the time spent by a user with his device. On the other hand, the mobile app revenues on a global scale has reached a whopping $188-billion in 2020.  These statistics only contradict all that is said about the “time is up” prediction for native apps.  

Well, there will be a terrible mistake if we consider that the good old native mobile apps in your handheld are going to be obsolete from tomorrow. No, they are still irreplaceable and will continue to hold the key for mobile experience for the vast majority of users for many years from now. But their real challenger has arrived and it is PWA, a fusion of traditional mobile web and native app technologies. 

What Exactly are Progressive Web Apps (PWA)? 

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are nothing but mobile optimised websites with native app like user experience in several aspects. While a PWA still runs on the browsers, it allows launching with a native app like icon from the home screen, offers push notifications just like native apps, allows offline access to content and certain features and above all delivers lightning fast loading speed. 

The promise is really big. Since we love the web because of the flexibility of anytime-anywhere access without the compulsion of downloading, we will find PWAs really good. On the other hand, just because we love native apps for their always-accessible-from-screen gait, here too PWAs perfectly fit our requirements. 

Both the dynamic user experience and speed of native apps and flexibility of the web are presented with a balanced mix to create PWA. No wonder, the technology continues to rise in popularity among all industry niches. But in spite of that average users accessing the web through good old mobile browsers or using native apps for all sorts of purposes are still clueless about what PWAs are.  

Let’s have a quick look at the key value propositions of PWA that make it a competitor against native apps. 

• PWAs are website par excellence with URLs as they can be accessed through mobile browsers.
• PWAs are exposed to search engine crawlers and offer regular search engine ranking benefits.
• PWAs can be accessed like apps right from the home screen.
• PWAs thanks to local caching offers lightning fast loading speed.
• PWAs can make use of the device features and platform specific user interface to deliver a native user experience.
• PWAs offer offline access to certain features and content because of their local caching capability.
• Instead of dealing with the discoverability challenges in App Store or Play Store, they can get more visibility through Google search engine.
• PWAs being web technology don’t need frequent updates like native apps but all the contents and additions are updated in real time while network connection is on.

Is PWA Still Capable Enough to Sever Our Bond with Native Apps?

Let us now get into some practical challenges that are creating more impetus in favour of PWAs. In many countries where small and medium businesses including startups make up the gigantic majority of digitised enterprise population, the cost of developing native mobile apps is a serious concern. 

Let us admit once and for all that native mobile app development for most small and medium enterprises is really expensive. Even when you hire a React Native app development company to build a native looking cross platform app, it is still a lot more expensive than web projects.

The initial development cost apart, the regular maintenance cost also takes a huge sum of money accounting for as much as 50% of the actual cost of development. When you can still deal with the big hurdle of cost, you need to face breath-choking competition in app marketplaces with millions of apps competing for visibility. 

So, in comparison to the challenges that hire wordpress developer india face on a regular basis, the dividend is still very low. The app marketing, the last straw of hope to help your app surge past the competition is also hugely competitive and rigorously resource consuming. 

With so many challenges ready to downplay your chance of success with a native app, you must be finding the promises of PWAs really worth considering. Yes, PWAs in complete contrast are less expensive and easy to build, more exposed to search engine visibility because of Google’s policy of promoting fast-paced and mobile optimised websites and easier to maintain and upkeep without much of a cost burden. 

Still, the End of Native Apps is Far Away 

Are Native apps being left in the backyard of digital strategy by businesses? Or, are they still at their prime of success? Well, in spite of all the challenges and shortcomings that we discussed above, native apps are still inseparable from the branding strategy of most businesses around the world. 

Native apps are still irreplaceable principally because of the sophisticated performance and user experience they deliver that still couldn’t be equalled by the web technology including the PWAs. For certain demanding functionalities like 3D or Augmented Reality, native apps are still the best answers.

On the other hand, many global publication houses such as Guardian, Forbes, Washington Post and several others already embraced PWAs for a unified web and mobile presence of their publications. This shows, wherever native apps will not be irreplaceable in terms of user experience, PWAs will take over.

Some Last Minute Advice When Taking Up PWA For Your Business 

The transition to PWA from your regular web presence needs a few considerations. Here we go. 

• Consider using a PWA implementation tool that comes well equipped and creates zero technical vulnerabilities.
• Make sure the new PWA can easily scale as per evolving business needs.
• Choose an implementation partner with utmost flexibility and technical expertise to create PWA that breathes well with your specific business needs.
• Build your PWA initially with minimum features and develop it further with value additions as per user feedback.

Also Read: Top 10 Best Tools for Testing the React Native Mobile Apps

Conclusion 

In the end, PWA as a disruptive technology should be embraced when the competition is still leaning towards mostly native apps. Now the time is ripe to shape your digital presence with a sophisticated and lean PWA.