Progressive web apps have gained massive popularity among entrepreneurs and business owners in recent years. While there are tons of reasons why the biggest brands out there have already embraced PWAs, here are the coolest ones:
- PWAs have a 36% higher conversion rate in comparison to native apps.
- They have delivered 50% higher customer engagement.
- These apps cost 3-4 times less in comparison to native mobile apps.
To be fair, we know this because we are in the business of web and app development. A lot of business owners however are not familiar with the features, benefits, and even the existence of progressive web applications. That’s why we decided to come up with this blog!
In this post, Big Kitty Labs will tell you everything about progressive web app development. From meaning and industry stats to features and development costs, we will cover all the important aspects.
Let’s start with the meaning of progressive web applications first!
What’s a progressive web application?
A Progressive Web Application (PWA) uses web browser APIs along with traditional web development technologies to deliver a rich mobile experience. PWAs are incorporated with modern app functionalities like push notifications, offline accessibility tech, and access to hardware features to deliver an app-like experience.
PWAs look and feel very much like a native app. The cutting-edge technology acts as a bridge between the web and mobile to provide a superior browsing experience on mobile devices.
Progressive web app: Industry examples
While the concept of progressive web applications was talked about by Steve Jobs himself, it has become mainstream in the last 5 years only.
Below are the industry stats and examples that explain how progressive web applications are making a BIG difference in the web realm:
- After deploying a PWA app, Pinterest witnessed a 60% jump in the core engagement. Total time spent by the users also increased by 40%.
- Flipkart’s PWA is driving 50% of its new customers.
- Trivago observed an increase of 150% in user engagement for people who installed PWA on the home screen.
- OLA reported a 69% increase in mobile traffic after deploying the progressive tech.
- Twitter with PWA technology saw a 75% increase in tweets and a 20% decrease in bounce rate.
Now that we know progressive web apps make sense in every way, let’s look at the features that will help you better understand the technology.
Progressive web application features
Progressive web applications pack several game-changing features that make them stand apart from native apps. Below are the major ones:
Add to home screen prompts
One of the key features of PWA is the “Add to Home Screen” popup that allows the users to easily ‘install’ it to mobile devices and create a shortcut on their home screen. Also known as A2HS, makes it super easy for users to access a trimmed-down app-like version of the website by tapping the icon added on the home screen.
Since brands like Twitter, Pinterest, and Flipkart have benefited from PWAs, Big Kitty Labs highly recommends this technology to businesses that have a huge base of repeat visitors/customers but think a native app isn’t a viable option for them.
Offline capabilities
Offline availability is probably the feature that made big brands fall in love with progressive web applications. PWA allows users to surf the app flawlessly even when the user is offline or experiencing low network (2G/3G).
Wondering how does that happen? These web applications store information offline and flexibly manage the network requests to recover pages from local cache data. For offline availability, data must have been cached previously. That’s only possible if previous interactions were made during internet access.
Automatic updates
Automatic updatesLaunching a new mobile app version is no child’s play. It requires comprehensive efforts by designers, developers, and quality control experts. After the update goes live, the user has to update the app manually (unless set on auto-updates). With progressive web application technology, the user doesn’t have to update the app for accessing new content and changes.
With progressive web applications, all you need to do is upload an updated file to the server and the update happens automatically. This saves a truckload of time and effort!
App-like experience
One of the main ideas behind incorporating progressive web application technology is to provide a superior user experience without compromising the nature of the web page. This is the major reason why most of the users are not able to differentiate between PWAs and native applications.
Note: No matter how similar they look, the method of developing, launching, and updating is entirely different from that of native applications. Hire an experienced team of mobile app developers to discuss your PWA goals.
Progressive web application development cost
If you are a business owner who is interested in PWAs and you read all the above carefully, you must now be wondering, ‘how much progressive web development costs?
Well, it’s hard to share the exact cost estimate for progressive web applications due to variables like:
- Development talent
- Team location
- Client requirements
- Industry in question
- More
That said, we can provide you a rough estimate for the PWA development cost.
The progressive web application cost ranges somewhere between $7,000 to $20,000 if an experienced app development firm in the USA is engaged. To give you a perspective, the average cost for native applications ranges between $15,000 to $80,000.
PWA endnotes
With its rapidly extending support and adoption, progressive web applications (PWA) have become an attractive option for entrepreneurs and business owners across the globe. If your business requirements perfectly fit the capabilities of a progressive web application, then, this web app technology is worth spending your bucks on!
We have talked about everything critical about progressive web applications and their development. We hope this article gave you the necessary insights to make an informed decision.
Still can’t make up your mind? Send your questions to contact@bigkittylabs.com and have them answered by our web development experts!
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