Introduction

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are web apps built and enhanced with modern APIs to deliver enhanced capabilities, reliability, and installability while reaching anyone, anywhere, on any device, all with a single codebase.

Once installed, a PWA looks like any other app, specifically:

• It has an icon on the home screen, app launcher, launchpad, or start menu.
• It appears when you search for apps on the device.
• It opens in a standalone window, wholly separated from a browser's user interface.
• It has access to higher levels of integration with the OS, for example, URL handling or title bar customization.
• It works offline.

In modern mobile operating systems, platform-specific apps are installed mostly from app stores, with rules and limitations on who can publish and what can be published for their users. These apps are typically shipped as a large, indivisible package, and every update needs re-packaging, re-signing, re-approval, and on-device re-installation.

A challenge for platform-specific apps is that they are not compatible with multiple platforms and devices, so it's not easy, if even possible, to move an Android app to iOS or an iOS to Windows or ChromeOS without creating a new app from scratch.

If you think about platform apps and web apps in terms of capabilities and reach, platform apps represent the best of capabilities, whereas web apps represent the best of reach.

Web

• Linkability
• Accessible by default
• Ubiquitous
• Easy to Deploy
• Easy to Update
• Everyone can publish

Platform apps

• Offline-capable
• High performance
• Device Integration
• Standalone experience
• Installed Icon
• Rich and reliable

People tend to think of Progressive Web Apps as an app that the user can install from a browser instead of an app store. However, a PWA can be listed in many app stores today as an optional distribution channel, including Google Play Store (for Android and ChromeOS), Microsoft Store (for Windows 10 and 11), and Apple AppStore (for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS). For these cases, you must follow all store rules and requirements, but you will still get some of the advantages of a PWA.

Large companies have already published PWAs on various products, including Apple (AppStore Connect, Feedback Assistant), Microsoft (Office 365, Windows 365), Google (Duo, YouTube Music, Drive), Amazon (Luna), Facebook (Instagram Lite, Gaming).

But things are not always smooth with PWA there are some challenges as well like:

• Cross-browser Compatibility
• Awareness of PWA
• Compatibility

A PWA should work everywhere, even when the icon installation or the offline support capabilities are unavailable. Always plan your PWA to work without capabilities by checking support and offering fallback solutions.