Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#1

Post by nikasakana » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 3:48 AM UTC

At my service company, for one of the clients - who wants a small mobile app in a very short time, we've decided to go with PWA(Progressive Web App) for bunch of different reasons like: ease of development, ease of distribution, etc.

What is your experience with PWA-s? Is it noticeably clanky compared to react-native apps? Are there any noticeable, well-known issues/bottlenecks with PWA-s? Thanks in advance!

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#2

Post by cranberryturkey » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 4:03 AM UTC

best first move imo

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#3

Post by zb1plus » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 5:55 AM UTC

Depends on what kind of app you have, if it is multimedia heavy or needs a lot of native capabilities, it's better to use react-native.

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#4

Post by nikasakana » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 6:52 AM UTC

zb1plus wrote: post #3

Depends on what kind of app you have, if it is multimedia heavy or needs a lot of native capabilities, it's better to use react-native.

Thanks for the comment!! Can you elaborate on "multimedia heavy"? Do you mean photo/video contents? WDYT about using PWA-s for something like chatgpt mobile clone? Can you share the thought process a bit deeper?

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#5

Post by mumer101 » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 7:13 AM UTC

I believe there were issues with ios support of some features.. is don't remember which one..

Reliable Install, native share, background tasks, etc

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#6

Post by beardyw » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 8:01 AM UTC

zb1plus wrote: post #3

Depends on what kind of app you have, if it is multimedia heavy or needs a lot of native capabilities, it's better to use react-native.

What native capabilities do PWAs not support?

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#7

Post by wruza » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 8:08 AM UTC

beardyw wrote: post #6

zb1plus wrote: post #3

Depends on what kind of app you have, if it is multimedia heavy or needs a lot of native capabilities, it's better to use react-native.

What native capabilities do PWAs not support?

I’d test (and extensively read on) push first.

Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38402368

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#8

Post by bugtodiffer » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 8:10 AM UTC

beardyw wrote: post #6

zb1plus wrote: post #3

Depends on what kind of app you have, if it is multimedia heavy or needs a lot of native capabilities, it's better to use react-native.

What native capabilities do PWAs not support?

reading files from sdcard or a million other things

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#9

Post by Sayrus » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 8:11 AM UTC

mumer101 wrote: post #5

I believe there were issues with ios support of some features.. is don't remember which one.. Reliable Install, native share, background tasks, etc

Notifications were also a huge issue for iOS PWA. I haven't followed so I'm not sure if anything changed.

Re: Ask HN: What's your experience with building mobile apps using PWA?

#10

Post by wruza » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 8:19 AM UTC

Sayrus wrote: post #9

mumer101 wrote: post #5

I believe there were issues with ios support of some features.. is don't remember which one.. Reliable Install, native share, background tasks, etc

Notifications were also a huge issue for iOS PWA. I haven't followed so I'm not sure if anything changed.

They were (and are) a huge issue everywhere, see a link to the thread below. Some active fans made us to believe it’s an ios problem when it wasn’t.