Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) are websites that resemble the look & feel and behavior & function of native apps when accessed using mobile devices, tablets, full HD desktop monitors, etc. They even operate offline, i.e., without internet connectivity if installed and can be accessed through the browser without getting downloaded. Optimized to provide a native-like experience to its users, PWAs are standalone web apps that are quick, reliable, and responsive. These Progressive Web Apps deliver high-performance, are platform-specific and require low development costs.

Technologies used to Develop Progressive Web Applications (PWAs)

As far as the development of PWAs is concerned, front-end technologies like HTML, CSS and Vanilla JS are used to deliver native User Experience and other frameworks/libraries like Ionic, Vue, Angular, React and Polymer, etc. are used for UI. As React is a popular front-end framework, using it to build Progressive Web Applications can be beneficial for multiple reasons.

Popular PWAs

Twitter is a renowned platform, which recently launched “mobile.twitter.com” as a PWA built with React and Node.Js. MakeMyTrip, Forbes, Alibaba, etc., are some to count. Some stats say that Twitter saw an increase in pages per session by 65%, an increase in Tweets sent by 75%, decrease in bounce rate by 20%.

PWA Design Patterns

Progressive Web App marks it necessary to implement service workers, and if it is done, it allows the offline working of the app to make it available for user interaction even when offline. Web technologies used for progressive web apps:

• Service workers;
• Web manifests;
• Application shell;
• HTTPS

Service workers’ is a built-in mechanism that acts as a proxy between the web browsers and API servers and entails many PWA’s features like managing how to properly cache the network requests and assets of a website and make them available even offline. Service workers have the power to control and modify network requests to serve custom responses collected from the cache. As service workers can be executed in a secure environment only, PWAs must be served over HTTPS, and you can test them on a platform that supports HTTPS, like localhost or set up GitHub Pages. The Web App Manifest to standardized JSON files to provide basic information about the app and guide the platform for app installation and management.

Limitations of PWA

With benefits come limitations and drawbacks. The use of PWA has some limitations - platform and hardware support. Since PWAs run in a browser, they do not have direct access to all platform capabilities. Some platforms also have restricted support for these apps, though support and capabilities are constantly evolving. The limited support on iOS is one of the biggest limitations for PWAs. Considering that iOS comprises a significant portion of the mobile app market share, steps are being taken to improve the support system. Also, some support is being provided after Apple’s changing stance on PWA.

Benefits of PWA

Steer clear of misinformation and see how PWAs can benefit you. Here we have enlisted some of the benefits of PWAs. PWA design is a platform-independent app that can be developed and deployed using a single, small codebase. Using a single codebase reduces the time is taken and resources to release the app in the market at the earliest. PWAs can be rolled out on multiple platforms for being inherently installable to work seamlessly and intuitively as a native app by simply installing or downloading. The term ‘progressive’ in PWAs ensconced the idea of web development with progressive enhancements. The term ‘responsive’ defines its responsiveness, i.e., these apps are device-friendly, and users from phones, tablets or desktops can access it easily. PWAs are responsive and lightweight, and most modern web browsers allow developers to fiddle with designs to make them function on different platforms and screen sizes consistently. These apps are discoverable by search engine indexing as well.

Benefits of Using React to Develop PWA

A rich ecosystem of tools and frameworks is required for PWA development to make its development, deployment and maintenance easier. It is one of the reasons that developers pick PWAs over anything else. Choosing React over other frameworks for Progressive Web Apps reduces loading time by 60%, increases session duration and it is lighter than the native app by 90%. Not only these apps are easier and faster to build using React but can be installed easily even by kids. Desktop users can go to the address bar and look for the install button on the right, while smartphone users can add it to the home screen using the button. Besides, React JS is the Best Choice for SaaS Development in 2022 and is used by top companies for software development.

Opt for React to Build a Progressive Web Apps

React was created and maintained by Facebook since 2013 as an open-source library for JavaScript and is used in different products or apps. The idea behind the use of React was to pace up the development of the user interface in a scalable manner to develop large and extensible web applications. Being the leader, React has seen the highest number of JavaScript package downloads in comparison to React, Vue, Angular, with over 8 Million downloads/week. Using React has immense benefits, some of them to count are; it offers great code reusability, and the ability to edit its UI functionality in runtime. Besides, it attracts users to drive engagement and boost conversions. Some other advantages of React are:

Rich in tools and frameworks

React is well-equipped with developer-friendly tools, boilerplates, and libraries to simplify the process of designing, testing and debugging apps anytime. With so many tools available, you as a developer can choose any tool as per the requirement and convenience. Some of them are Ant Design, Semantic UI React, Create React App by Facebook, React Developer Tools, etc.

React-powered

Every company desires to have a top-notch app that performs best in the market. And React aces the task. It helps in the creation of fast and scalable web applications with no or least errors. It’s been noticed that JS faces performance issues related to DOM (Document Object Model), the structural representation of web pages. Unlike JS, React uses virtual DOM to edit UI without editing the whole page or using code-heavy bootstrapping libraries like JQuery. With its faster rendering speed, the page load time reduces adequately.

Community-backed

With a strong and responsible community of over a million developers, React is the fifth prominent open-source repository on Github. Hashtags are growing with Reactjs as their keyword and have approx. 2 lakh questions in StackOverflow.

SEO-Friendly

Working with large applications may prompt issues with web rendering services that may cause SEO issues eventually. Due to the reasons, Google search results fail to show a part of your website. Using React will ensure that your web pages will get indexed precisely using virtual DOM.

Responsive & Browser-friendly

Unlike other frameworks, React is developers-friendly as well as screen-friendly. The Mobile-first approach prioritizes mobile appearance and considers it as default size. PWAs hinge on the web for all progressive features A survey reveals that 8% of e-commerce companies are already using Progressive Web Apps, and 9% of e-commerce companies are planning to invest in progressive web apps (PWA) in 2022. Since we have been into this development part for a long, we have seen clients worrying about the development cost of PWAs. Provided that we develop and maintain PWAs for all, we can assure you that PWAs development using react is not at all overly expensive. Your typical budget for an eCommerce app would be even higher than the development cost of these web apps. Making progressive web applications using React is not rocket science. At Assert IT, we have a qualified team of professional web developers and you can hire react developers to ensure that we miss nothing out of what you expect. You can simply contact us to know more about our cost-effective PWA solutions.