Progressive web app

What is a progressive web app?

A progressive web app is an application built with web technology that can be installed on a device from the browser. Once installed, a progressive web app opens in its own window and can keep working without a network connection if it caches its pages. It can receive push notifications after the person allows them, on iPhone and iPad only once it has been added to the Home Screen. No app store is needed.

How does a progressive web app get installed?

Installation happens in the browser rather than in a store. The site publishes a manifest describing its name, icon and start screen, the browser offers to add it, and the person accepts. From then on the app has an icon like any other. The MDN reference describes the result:

"Like a platform-specific app, it can be installed on the device, can operate while offline and in the background, and can integrate with the device and with other installed apps." (MDN Web Docs, Progressive web apps)

Underneath sits a service worker, a script the browser can start in the background, even when the app is closed, and stops again when it is idle. It is what caches the pages for offline use and what receives push messages. The MDN Push API reference makes the dependency explicit: "For an app to receive push messages, it has to have an active service worker."

What is the difference between a progressive web app and a native app?

Three differences survive scrutiny, and one of them is a gate rather than a gap. The first is distribution. A native app comes from the App Store or Google Play. A progressive web app comes from a link. That changes who can get it and how fast an update reaches them. The second is device access. A native app can use the camera, biometric sign-in and the contact list through the operating system's own interfaces, once the person grants permission. A progressive web app gets a subset that varies by browser and by platform. The third is the gate. Push notifications on iPhone work only after the web app has been added to the Home Screen. Apple's WebKit team said so when it announced the capability for iOS and iPadOS 16.4 in February 2023, describing it as "support for Web Push and other features for Home Screen web apps" (WebKit, Web Push for Web Apps on iOS and iPadOS). That extra step is small, and in a workforce rollout a small extra step is where people drop out. Everything else people list as a difference, speed, look, offline behaviour, is now a matter of how well each one was built.

When is a progressive web app the wrong choice?

When the app is the daily tool and the phone is the workplace. If the job leans on device features all shift, or needs a lock-screen message at 05:00 to reach every iPhone without a Home Screen step, build native. It is also the wrong choice when someone has already decided that an app-store listing is part of the credibility of the thing, which is a real organisational constraint even when it is not a technical one.

The cost argument cuts the other way and is smaller than people expect. Publishing a native app costs US$99 a year for an Apple Developer Program membership and a one-off US$25 for a Google Play developer account, and Apple's Small Business Program reduces its commission to 15% for developers with up to US$1 million a year in proceeds, which is irrelevant to an app nobody pays for. So the store fees are not the reason to choose a progressive web app. The reason is reach: a link works on the first day for everyone with a smartphone and a browser, and an install does not.

The other trap runs the opposite way. Wrapping a website in a native shell to get a store listing is not a substitute, and Apple rejects it in guideline 4.2 of the App Store Review Guidelines: "Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website." A good progressive web app is a better answer than a weak native wrapper.

How does tchop handle the web app and the native app?

tchop publishes the same content as a browser web app and as a white-label native app for iOS and Android, so an organisation does not have to choose a format and lose an audience. For an employee app, tchop recommends private (B2B) distribution of the native app under the customer's own developer account rather than a public store listing. AOK, one of Germany's largest statutory health insurers, runs its employee apps on tchop, as mobile apps and a web app, across several regional AOKs, for staff in branch offices and administration. tchop is not an app development platform, so it gives you a configured app rather than a codebase, and bespoke device features are a separate project rather than a setting.

The detail sits on the tchop web app page and on mobile apps.

FAQs: progressive web app

Why is PWA not popular?

Because it spent years unable to do the one thing internal communication needs. Push notifications on iPhone arrived only with iOS 16.4 in 2023, and then only for web apps added to the Home Screen.

What is the difference between a web app and a progressive web app?

A web app runs in a browser tab. A progressive web app is a web app that also publishes a manifest and runs a service worker, which lets the browser install it, cache its pages for offline use, and deliver push messages to it. Every progressive web app is a web app. The reverse is not true.

Is PWA still relevant in 2026?

Yes, and the support numbers are the reason. The Push API is available to 96.27% of tracked global browser use, counting full and partial support (Can I use, accessed 23 September 2026). The format is no longer held back by capability. It is held back by the Home Screen step on iPhone and by procurement habits.

Which one should an employer give staff with no company device?

Start with the progressive web app, because a link reaches everyone with a smartphone and nothing has to be installed to read it. Move the daily users to the native app once you know who they are. Across the EU, 64.6% of people employed in enterprises with 10 or more staff have internet access for business purposes, and in German food, beverage and tobacco manufacturing the share is 39.2% (Eurostat, isoc_ci_cm_pn2, 2025), so the first job is reach and the second is depth.