Native app Or PWA?

The word app has become well-established in our society in recent years. It is a derivative of application and now even included in the Van Dale.

But it is a broad term and we find that it sometimes causes confusion as well. Time for clarification. In our field, there are roughly two types of apps: Native apps and Progressive Web Apps (PWA).

A native app you install directly on your smartphone. Often such an app works even without being connected to the Internet depending on the nature of the app. Many apps also ask for access to such things as contacts or data from other apps upon installation.

A Progressive Web App works over the Web, making it largely platform independent when built correctly. A Progressive Web App must almost always be connected to the Internet to work. Simply put, it is a website that is designed to provide an optimal user experience on a smartphone, thus providing the same experience as a native app.

Even though the native app is installed on your smartphone, the Web often plays a big role in such applications. In the background there is almost always communication with web services that provide the app with the right data. For intensive tasks, the native app also has the advantage that you can make more use of the smartphone's hardware so that such tasks can be performed faster and improve the user experience.

For many organizations, the Progressive Web App is an unknown or underappreciated option. But with current technologies and future developments, a PWA is often a perfect solution with the very big advantage that you are platform independent and anyone with a browser can use your app. More and more native features are also accessible to a PWA such as camera and location. The PWA also forms an excellent basis for a possible native app in the future.

Do you have an idea for an application, but want to know more about the possibilities? Then we would love to sit down with you to help you further with these choices!