A mobile application for any device or cloud environment produces great results for small businesses working in distributed environments and cross-functional teams, as well as individual contributors. As the need of your workforce changes to a more software-app-driven workflow, there is an urgency to scale your cloud infrastructure along with all its apps. Often, businesses choose between Progressive Web Apps vs Native Apps to build their digital business mobility solutions.
PWA vs Native App: What Does Your Business Need Now?
Many organizations prefer to train and deploy a natively developed cloud-based solution to design intuitive native app features surrounding their enterprise activities using predefined, existing platform tools tailored to unique objectives.
The difference in choosing between PWA or a native app is often about the customization options, platform security, governance, and cost per microservices employed to maintain an ever-expanding business environment using web technologies.
Yet, when building a custom application, whether PWA or native app, there are key factors you must assess beforehand, like assessing the potential impact of implementing such a solution before you identify the best way to build it.
Some questions you may have before putting together resources to build your PWA or native app may be:
- What type of content works best for web apps?
- How much time do you have to build your solution?
- How would you like users to access your app and its features?
- Is offline functionality required for your app?
- How do progressive web apps give development teams more control?
- Does the progressive web app or native app development process differ vastly from your current business needs?
PWA vs Native App Performance: What Works Best For You?
Performance is fundamental to any business when deciding between Progressive Web Apps vs Native Apps. The performance of a progressive web app is usually better than a responsive or mobile site.
Progressive web apps leverage service workers, like JavaScript, or other scripts which empower users to run multiple scripts in the background and are separate from a web page while working on tasks. Service workers enable faster loading, offline availability, push notifications, etc. Thus, using a PWA to work offline or on a weak network is more convenient for business-critical operations.
The fact that PWA needs a web browser to function properly is its lone drawback. There might be a delay or more energy used as a result of voluminous activity. When it comes to native apps, they are created specifically for one platform and employ their native programming languages and APIs.
To give users intuitive and interactive experiences, native apps take advantage of the hardware and device capabilities for better user experiences. Therefore, native apps are usually better performers than progressive web apps.
Difference between PWA and Native App Features
The flexibility of any application impacts the performance of operations using the service. The ability to customize your web or mobile apps as business requirements change is fundamental to modernization. Thus, choosing a PWA development method or a Native App Development method depends on the code friendliness of your chosen platform - whether iOS or Android or a Web Browser - and of course, your business goals matter most.
To understand whether your business would benefit from Progressive Web Apps or native apps, listed below are the key differences between key PWA vs Native App Features.
| Factor | PWA | Native |
|---|---|---|
Market Timing | Rapid Development | Takes Longer to Build and Deploy |
Cross-Platform Support | Available | Not Accessible |
Installation | There is No Installation Required | Get it From the Relevant App Stores |
Function Access | Limited Access to Features | Access all of the hardware support and unique features |
Online Discontinuity | Offline Mode is Enabled by Pre-caching | Offline Mode is Available |
Notifications via Push | iOS Platform not Supported | Suitable for All Platforms |
Security | HTTPS Encryption is Secure | Integrate Security According to the Platform in Question (Android or iOS) |
Updates | Regular Updates | The User is Required to Perform Manual Updates |
When contrasting Progressive Web Apps vs. Native Apps, it's crucial to realize that the flexibility of the programming languages employed affects the development of your app, whether additional add-ons are needed down the road, how long it takes to launch, what kinds of user testing are necessary, and even whether you want to create a unique run-time environment for your app and modify it based on user-generated insights.
This makes it imperative to plan and ensure that your business mirrors the needs of its users using a custom app development approach.
Time-to-market
A native app is often more exclusive to your corporate branding objectives and is easier to govern if you want an exclusive application to run intuitively on the smartphone interface (Android or iOS) for its users. Yet, the time-to-market for your native app can be lengthy depending on the extensive customizations and feature-rich elements required.
Also, since you are using existing technologies to build a native app, you have a predefined set of rules native to each environment that impact app development and testing. While PWAs run on HTML script, it's friendlier to fix site errors without compromising the app's marketability and availability online. This makes PWAs quicker to develop, and deploy.
Native app development requires a team that knows the intricacies of mobile app usage, and how to harness platform-specific technologies to design and scale your app features. With an increased reach to user demographics, native apps are a popular choice for D2C, B2C commerce and B2B sales and marketing automation.
Security
For quick development and deployment to support simple or complex functions, a progressive web app benefits businesses looking to harness various service providers and databases to carry out functions consistently and accurately using a web browser, or web app interface.
PWAs are quick to deploy and easier to mitigate data threats in the event of a cyber attack and are quicker to recover in case of server error.
Since the PWAs run on HTTPS, there is very little room for data leakages between the client and server. On the other hand, native apps offer you access to all platform-specific functionalities to produce improved customizations and usually feature more dynamic elements for the users.
Functionality
The capabilities of Bluetooth, geofencing, inter-app communications, and other technologies are accessible through native apps.
Speaking of progressive web apps, they have become extremely popular among companies all over the world. They are still unable to use all of the device's features, unlike native apps.
Because they rely on Web APIs to access hardware features, and progressive web apps, this is the cause. Additionally, iOS does not support push notifications from progressive web apps. We can thus conclude that PWAs are less feature- and functionality-rich than native apps.
Also, Read: How to Increase User Engagement on Your Mobile App
PWA or Native App: What Will You Choose?
By contrasting PWA vs Native app features, this section outlines your app development goals for the best results when choosing between a PWA or a Native App. This way, you'll know exactly what you need to do to update your company's operations.
When to Choose PWA?
- If your business requires a user-friendly app
- If you're on a tight budget
- If you intend to build and launch apps more quickly
- To reach more users
- To use with compact devices like smartphones and tablets
- Waste less time waiting for app store approval before going live
When to Choose a Native App?
- To create a long-lasting and credible brand identity
- Publishing apps on leading app stores are more reliable
- To incorporate feature-rich functions like geofencing or sensor detection
- To let iOS users receive push notifications
- To offer users increased security
When deploying a robust solution, testing functionalities and onboarding a diverse user base, there are numerous factors to take into account regardless of whether your business requires a PWA or Native app. Security is king, and a customized approach to app development will only be advantageous to your company.
You might still be unsure about whether a PWA or Native App is best for your company right now, building on the developments of the current digital workplace revolution. We'll find a surefire way to make your ideas a reality if you help us with your particular business challenges and the need for cutting-edge, responsive applications.
Business is always changing and so are the needs of your workforce. As of now, the best way to build an app depends solely on how you run your business corresponding to key questions and insights outlined in the sections above.
Still in dilemma? Book a free consultation with our experts to help you with your next project.
