For your MVP: PWA or mobile application?

I recently met a founder who challenged me: “I have an online travel agency, why would I create a mobile application when I can create a Progressive Web App?”.

On the spot, i did not have a good answer. To be honest, I never researched PWAs and just assumed that they were bad. Though for that conclusion I had no arguments and the root of that answer probably laid in the fact that this is not something I offer.

So last week, I took some time to do some digging and what I found surprised me and conforted me in my answer.

What are PWAs?

PWAs are essentially responsive web sites which are repackaged as an app with extra technology to make the experience smoother.

One the of the big technology that is added is Service Workers. Service workers will preload and cache the code of your app so that when the page is needed, it can be displayed almost immediately. No need to go ask it from the server again. That makes for a much quicker UX.

Another benefit is that PWAs can be installed on your phone home-screen so you don’t have to remember the URL.

Can you ditch your native app?

PWAs as replacement for a native or react native app has a lot of limitations from the technical stand…