I'm going to throw it out there right up front...I am a #codenewbie. So if this question is ridiculous, please let me know as nicely as possible.
However, with everything moving more towards mobile development, I have obviously started considering learning a mobile framework. And then I heard about this great new thing in web development called the Progressive Web App. I took Net Ninja's PWA Youtube Course and it got me wondering...
If PWA's are becoming more common for web browsers, and they can be saved to a mobile device's home screen, what are the pros/cons of the PWA against mobile frameworks like Ionic and Flutter? And does understanding how PWA's work and are deployed keep me from needing to learn a mobile framework?
Again, complete novice here, so I apologize if this question is out of left field. Thanks!
Top comments (8)
PWA are good for many use cases, but they don't leverage the native tools in the same way. Think: notifications, interaction with other apps on the device, authentication, speed and battery consumption...
Also app store visibility is not so easy with a PWA. Especially with Apple.
There are lots of cases where these things above are not so important, and there's plenty positives to opting for a PWA - it will definitely be interesting to see how things develop in the next few years!
Without comprehensive knowledge on my part, it will certainly depend on how well or if iPhone supports PWA and if you want access to phone features that browsers can't yet.
Thank you sir! I hadn't thought about accessing phone features. That definitely seems like a good argument to know a framework.
You might find this recent Medium/Better Programming article interesting too
We’re Killing the Mobile Web
I don't know enough about either side, but this is definitely not a ridiculous question.
Haha thank you! I was worried there was an obvious answer given how many frameworks there seem to be.
On the contrary, my guess is there isn't actually a definitive answer, both routes have different sets of strengths and weaknesses, and both are really brand new ideas in general. Definitely interested to hear opinions.
Apparently, Web Applications are so lightweight and are the powerful alternative to native mobile apps that I am biased to say that Yes, PWAs can eliminate this need of mobile frameworks.