For the past few months the Progressive Web Apps are going viral. HackerNews, Journal Du Net, Meetups, Stackoverflow - the developer community has been talking about it more and more since the end of 2015. What explains all this turmoil? If you have an eCommerce site or a web application and already have or plan to develop a mobile application, this article lets you know if you should consider the option of a Progressive Web App.

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What is a Progressive Web App?

Above all, Progressive Web Apps are websites. More precisely, they are mobile sites, made installable on phones, with the advantages of an application and without its drawbacks. This is possible thanks to the use of recent web technologies such as Service Workers, modern javascript frameworks (Angular.js, React.js etc.), and browser storage.

In short, Progressive Web Apps improve the experience of your mobile users.

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What is the difference with a mobile app?

A Progressive Web App is still a web application:

• each user can consult and share it from a URL
• no installation is required
• easily indexable by search robots like Google
• the skills needed to create one are mostly web skills

However, we benefit from numerous advantages that until now were reserved for mobile applications:

• Accelerated load time - depending on the connection, the time to interact with the content of your application may be even less than 1 second
• possibility to install on the phone's home screen with a dedicated icon and a splashscreen
• possibility of operating offline
• integration of push notifications

However, some functionalities remain inaccessible or limited:

• no access to Bluetooth and other advanced phone features
• limitations in integration with other applications, for example the social login (e.g. Facebook or Google) must go through the respective websites and not the applications
• no presence on stores (Play Store, iTunes etc.)

This technology is constantly evolving. For an up-to-date list of features, you can consult This site.

In addition, today, Progressive Web Apps are only compatible with recent Android phones, this improvement does not apply to iPhones (14% of the market in France). However, Apple plans to make Safari Mobile compatible with this technology in its 2017 roadmap.

Why should I be interested in a Progressive Web App?

The mobile web is still more open than applications

According to A recent study by comScore, the mobile web represents 9% of the average use of a mobile user. Moreover, the time spent on applications is mainly shared by the major players: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube. Users are increasingly reluctant to install new applications. In the same study, 49% of users reported downloading less than one app per month. The mobile web therefore remains an easy way to access these users if the experience offered by the site meets users' expectations.

Development cost is limited

Developing a Progressive Web App for modern sites is mainly about adding additional tools to your existing code. This does not require a separate code base or heavy investments in new technology.

The cost of acquiring a user is lower compared to applications

The cost of acquiring a mobile user (loyal) remains very high : 2.5 - 5$ per user compared to 0.3 - 0.4$ for web users. Users encounter several obstacles in installing an application: they must go to the store, download the application (if they have the necessary space), accept the permissions, etc. According to UX researchers, each of these steps leads to a loss of 20% of users. Progressive applications allow you to have a presence on the user's phone, while eliminating those friction points that are unique to a mobile application.

Retention and user experience are better than on the web

The argument most often used to develop a mobile application is the desire to be “present on the user's phone.” Progressive web apps make it possible to do that, by increasing user retention and recurrence. For example, Flipkart has, increased by 70% its conversion rate for Progressive Web Apps users. In addition, with a good caching system and offline operation, the experience is faster and more fluid than on the mobile web, so users encounter fewer obstacles in use.

What strategy for your mobile experience?

Progressive Web Apps are not going to replace mobile applications. Mobile applications are increasingly oriented towards interaction and instantaneity; the mobile web, more in terms of discovery, remains complementary. Progressive Web Apps are therefore an improvement to your mobile website - to give an experience to your mobile users, especially those who are not yet sufficiently loyal to make the effort to download an application.

The ideal strategy therefore remains twofold: start with a mobile, responsive or dedicated site that is a Progressive Web App to provide the same (or even better) user experience on phones as on the web. Then, develop a mobile application, which includes only certain characteristics of your project - those that generate recurrence, which require instantaneity and which will enrich the mobile user experience rather than replicate that of the web.

If you have a project and want to discuss progressive web apps with us, contact one of our experts.