Which is Better – PWA or Native App for Your Ecommerce Business?

Do you know the number of mobile phones across the world has reached 2.87 billion in recent times?

Well, that’s a fact that indeed talks about the scope of benefits every mobile application out there has. Suppose we talk about the importance of mobile apps for businesses in the present time. If we talk about the most important mobile app categories, it has to be social media and games. But we are here to talk about one such category that has received a huge growth in the last decade. Yes, it’s e-commerce! In the past few years, e-commerce businesses have started seeing mobile apps as an important investment for the growth of their online store and looks for a mobile app development company to build a highly creative and optimized app for their business growth. 

With the advent of mobile app technology in the eCommerce industry, there also comes a debate between PWA and Native App – which one to choose? Evidently, the importance of various progressive web apps and mobile apps have incredibly increased in the world of eCommerce. Despite the differences in approach and design, both PWA and Native Apps have emerged as impressive options to establish an eCommerce Business. But obviously, you cannot choose both to build your online store. Hence, again comes the question which is better? So, to help you get the answer, we welcome you to read this blog to seek the best option available for you. Let’s try to understand the rudimentary differences. 

Progressive Web Apps 

Eventually, a progressive web app is a website which behaves like a native mobile app. One of the most vital differences is that a Progressive Web App only operates in a compatible browser and so there is no need to download it from the app store. PWA could easily save data in the form of cache in the user’s device. It keeps the users updated despite poor internet connection. You can use extensions and could enjoy various important features like push notification and many others. Along with that, it also ensures offline experiences to your online stores such as background synchronization and many others. Progressive Web app works efficiently, and so the credit goes to the service workers, which is basically a script that functions in the background of the browser in order to provide amazing services. 

Native Apps

The Native Apps are basically designed in a way so that it could efficiently work on Android and various iOS Platforms. As a user, you are expected to download native apps from the app store if you wish to use it. The Native Apps focuses on using the entire functionality that the device offers. 

Comparative Analysis of Progressive Web App vs Native Apps

This article talks about some of the significant differences between Progressive Web App and Native App. Hopefully, this might help you to understand the fundamental differences between the two. 

Advantages of Native Apps

Amazing Performance

Native Apps are basically developed and optimized for a specific platform; they ensure a high level of performance. Eventually, they are installed directly on smartphones and allow the software to handle the processing speed of the device. As the data is already stored on a device, the application works faster. 

Compatibility with other apps

Native mobile applications do have greater interaction capability with other apps. It means you could efficiently connect to the third-party services without any fuss. Any kind of integration, such as authorization from Facebook or shipping through FedEx with an external service is not a tough task. 

Easy Customization

Easy customization is another perk of choosing a Native Application development. The apps provide an amazing interface and great user experience. The various online store owners could easily customize their stores as they do enjoy the opportunity to add many exclusive features. 

Geofencing

In case you don’t know native mobile apps could easily use various core operating system features like Geofencing. It is with this exclusive feature; the users do receive a push-notification whenever the user approaches a particular location. 

Advantages of Progressive Web Apps

Great Accessibility

Progressive web apps are independent of app stores as you do not have to download it. As per the statistics, more than 20% of the smartphone users do delete the app as there is no sufficient storage, but this is not a problem with the progressive web apps. The users are not supposed to download Progressive Web Apps, and so it saves a lot of space, effort, time and internet. You just need a web browser to proceed with it. 

Independent Functionality

Many experts vouch for progressive web apps because they could easily function in offline mode as well. It ensures the users the accessibility to access the online store anytime. It also keeps the users updated. 

SEO Optimization

SEO optimization is another benefit that comes along with your decision of choosing PWA. Just to let you know, progressive Web Apps do have URLs which means the customers could easily find a Progressive Web App using the search engine.  

Inexpensive and fast 

One of the biggest benefits of PWA is inexpensive and fast development. Progressive web applications are cheaper, easier and faster to develop as compared to native apps. If you wish to develop a native app from scratch, it demands the addition of technologies from both platforms such as iOS and Android. However, in case of a Progressive Web App, all you need is HTML, CSS and JavaScript. 

We have tried to bring out some of the amazing features of both Progressive Web App as well as Native Apps. Now, it is up to your choice and requirement to select either for your eCommerce Website. No matter whichever app you are choosing, you must know about the various complexities awaiting. However, to avoid the tussle, you could appoint a certified, acknowledged and a reliable mobile app development Company on board. In that case, you could rely on Auxesis Infotech which is a highly-rated mobile app development company.