Progressive Web Apps: What They Can and Can't Do
Key takeaway
A PWA gives you one codebase, no app store, instant updates, and a URL anyone can open — which makes it excellent for reach and content-led products. It remains the wrong choice when you need deep hardware access, background processing, or the discoverability and payment mechanics of the app stores.
Progressive web apps sit between a website and an installed application: a web app that can be added to the home screen, work offline, and behave like an app once opened. Whether that's enough depends entirely on what your product needs from the device.
What you gain
- No store submission or review, so you ship fixes the moment they're ready rather than days later.
- One codebase serving desktop and mobile, with no separate build per platform.
- A URL: shareable, linkable, indexable, and openable with no install step — which removes the biggest drop-off in the funnel.
- Offline capability and caching through a service worker, so it keeps working on a poor connection.
- Much smaller footprint than an installed app, which matters in markets with limited storage and expensive data.
Where it falls short
- Hardware and platform access is limited and varies by browser — Bluetooth, NFC, background location, and advanced camera control are unreliable or unavailable.
- Background processing is constrained; a PWA can't do sustained work while closed.
- Push notification support differs significantly between platforms, and on some it's absent or newly arrived.
- No store presence, which matters if your users look for apps by searching a store.
- In-app purchase mechanics and the trust signals of a store listing are simply not available.
Choosing
- Content, commerce, booking, or information products with broad reach: a PWA is often the better business decision.
- Internal business tools where you control the devices and want instant updates without a deployment process: strong fit.
- Products needing deep device integration, continuous background activity, or store distribution: native or cross-platform.
- Unsure? A PWA first is a low-risk way to validate demand, and it remains useful as your mobile web experience even if you later build native.
Build it properly or don't bother
The label is easy to claim and easy to get wrong. A real PWA loads fast on a slow connection, works with no connection at all, handles being installed, and keeps the cached version from going stale — that last point being the most common defect, where users see old content and no way to refresh. If you're not going to do the offline and caching work carefully, a fast responsive website is the more honest product.