On the incredible global platform of World Wide Web, different software systems, programs, and applications are developed daily combining a mix of ubiquity across the devices & operating systems and unaltered user-centric security facilities.
Out of a lot more mobile app development solutions, Progressive Web Applications and Native Applications are majorly preferred among the users, though both of them have their own importance and reasons of implementation. Progressive Web Apps are more accessible than the Native Apps, and they can be obtained using any web browser or device, being stored on remote server. The popularity of PWA is rising these days. They actually look like websites, but can be easily installed on smartphones with providing good performance and seamless user-experience as well. Whereas, Native Applications are the most conventional apps that we generally use on our smart devices and phones like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram applications.
However, when it comes to decide which type of applications should be preferred by the companies, and what should be an ideal choice for them, there always remains a scope of a deep discussion behind. As industry experts find native app development service as the most integral part of the mobile development ecosystem, they find PWAs soon replacing them. So, let’s get into more detail in this context.
A Glance through PWA
PWAs are a mixture of websites and mobile applications. Hence, it comprises the dual benefits of an app and a website. When a PWA is build, it goes through custom app development scenario, without needing to install the setup and run the app like happens with the native apps. Implementation of modern JavaScript frameworks and a wide range of benefits associated to it make it popular among the users. A PWA is,
- Cost-effective
- Fast and highly-responsive
- Compatible to cross-platform frameworks
- Holds low storage requirements
- Secure and SEO-friendly
Twitter noticed 75% increase in the sending of Tweets after the evolution of Twitter Lite in 2017 with a reduced bounce rate up to 20%. Flipkart acknowledged 70% conversion rate and 40% increase in the re-engagement rate with introducing Flipkart PWA in 2015. Starbucks fortunately witnessed a 23% of increase in order diversity after launching its PWA in 2017 and Pinterest witnessed a 60% increase in engagements.
A Glance through Native Apps
The apps made specifically for a particular platform are native apps like Google Maps, Amazon etc that offer speed and great performance. The best thing is they can be installed easily from the Play Store and used instantly. However, the usability may differ based on the Android and iOS features and so, there can also be a bit difference in their custom application development cost and time. Another significant feature is that they can also use a smartphone’s hardware capabilities and based of which they enhance the wholesome user experience. Flutter and React Native are some of the popularly used cross-platform mobile app development platforms to develop quality native apps. Native apps,
- Help mitigating security risks
- Involve fast native code that ensures low battery consumption
- Efficiently uses mobile device’s hardware such as GPS receivers, camera access, Bluetooth etc
- Facilitate endless personalization possibilities
- Ensure high performance for excellent user-experience
Over 2 billion active Instagram users can share their stories, videos, photos, and other stuff online in minutes. Most-preferred on-demand ride-booking application Uber shares the largest market share among its competitors. Spotify – a popular music streaming mobile application has earned over 205+ million premium subscribers show why native apps are so much popular and are highly demanded among its users.
Quick Comparison between PWAs and Native Apps
An Overview of Comparison
It is quite challenging to choose which kind of app or what app idea is suitable for a business, especially when the businesses are at the emerging positions, starting app development, or migrating to a new platform. Hence, knowing the key differences is not just enough. Both types of applications are surrounded by their advantages and limitations while developed by a mobile app development company.
Benefits and Limitations of Progressive Web Apps
In comparison to the traditional apps, PWAs load faster and helps the users to work even during low internet connectivity and limited storage space. But they have limited access to the underlying software and hardware of the device that limits their functionalities to a major extent. Enabling push notifications, PWAs enhance engagement and interactivity with the users, but are as vulnerable as the native apps in terms of security features. In PWAs, the risk of security theft increases due to the absence of proper precautionary measures like multi-factor authentication, HTTPS, and risk of security breaches.
The best thing with PWAs is that these apps can be added to the home screen of the users’ device. Thus, it becomes easier for the users to access the app keep it up-to-date. When they don’t need to be re-installed, they can be updated with fixing bugs and involving latest features. These apps provide a unified user experience across all the platforms and browsers. As they are built using web standards, they can be easily accessed and used uniformly across all the devices.
Benefits and Limitations of Native Apps
Since, native apps are tailored for the operating systems and hardware of the smart devices, they always outperform the web apps. Thus, this leverages the native features of the devices resulting in their superior performances. These apps can perform background operations even when they are not running in foreground facilitating tasks such as file downloads, data synchronization, and audio streaming on Android and iOS platforms.
Simultaneously, the development and deployment of native apps is a complex process due to their distribution through multiple app stores that demands a range of approval processes and makes the entire process extensive and lengthy. These apps are less widely available than the web apps involving their exclusive distribution through the app stores that ultimately results in their reduced discoverability in comparison to the web apps.
The best thing using the native apps is that they feature a variety of themes that allows the users to alter the look and feel of a program. This increases the attractiveness of the app and enhances experience to a broader user base. To deliver feature-centric experience to the users, these apps always offer platform-specific tools to navigate applications, mobile payment, and robust security related features. Compared to web apps, native apps are highly secure as they go through a strong and long approval process by the app stores ensuring that they are safe before reaching the ultimate customers. The only limitation they have is their expensiveness in comparison to developing a single web app. The higher cost of native app development involves several factors such as separate code bases for different platforms, increased testing needs, marketing efforts, and fees of the app stores to make the apps available to the users. These apps take more time to develop in comparison to the web apps due to their platform-specific development and extensive testing across multiple devices and operating systems for absolute compatibility.
A Developer and a User’s Perspective
Native applications are run on the mobile devices, whereas the web apps are run inside the mobile browser. You need to hire experienced professionals to get the native apps developed for your business along with some separate resources needed to update and maintain the apps. But, PWAs are like a smooth sailing. You need the tools like Google Lighthouse for configuring your current website to create a web app. Also, it is quicker and more straightforward to update and maintain web apps.
Progressive Web Apps don’t need to adhere to all requirements of different app stores to make them accessible to the public. Only a mobile browser and a URL is enough to access them with simple and quick update features associated with them. PWAs can be availed through Google SERPs and run under HTTPS, their client and server exchanges can never be tampered. Therefore, they are more secure than the native apps. For native apps, you need to build the security features to make the apps more secure like certificate pinning, multi-factor authentication, etc.
Service workers scripts separate the app from web page in case of PWAs that enable prefetching information, managing offline requests, and synchronizing data with a remote server. These apps come with a major drawback that they are unable to provide the flexibility and versatility that the native apps provide to their users. On the other hand, the software package resides within the device enables the native apps to perform even without the availability of the internet connection. The level of security is such that all payment apps are developed using native frameworks and platforms.
PWA vs. Native Apps – What to Choose From?
Well, it takes time to make a perfect decision. Before deciding upon the type of app you want, you need to define your goals and set your business requirements. As a business, you need to identify which level the support these apps will take your business to and how profitable they can be for your business’s growth.
For the startups, just simple apps can work best. This way, you should always try to stay away from the messy solutions that take time to provide reasonable output. Here, your priority should be to generate the apps that can yield you good profits without much cost involved and procedures undertaken and for this, it is always better to go with the Progressive Web Apps. This seems significant as well when you have budget constraints and you cannot think of investing too much on app development for the further growth of your business.
For reducing the app to market time and launching the app immediately to work on your business, it is always recommended to go for the PWAs. They are helping if you are looking for steady and fruitful results and looking to build your business brand with effective SEO and marketing benefits.
Simultaneously, native apps are always helpful in many respects. For building the reputation of your brand in the market, they are always the first choice. For payment related and other high-quality and high security measures, it is always best to opt for the native apps that best solve the purpose. Native apps always come with all the advanced features and hardware support. Therefore, it will always benefit to choose the native apps for various reasons.
Conclusion
Your business is your own personal entity. Hence, you are solely responsible for obtaining the type of app you need to take it further. For whatever requirement you need an app, you should research hard, ask the experts, and then finalize what to choose. When you compare both the type of apps, you will find no clear winner. Instead, both have their own pros and cons and both cannot replace each other in anyway. You are free to choose a PWA or a native app based on your business’s requirements and goals and ask your developers to help present the best quality apps that can yield good results. Check out the differences suggested above and then make the final decision. Your choice will decide what would be the perfect move for your business and an efficient app developer can make this golden chance worth for your business by making most of the situations.