Why Progressive Web Apps Still Matter in 2025

PWAs aren't new. They're not experimental. They've been production-ready for years. The conversation has moved on from "will this work?" to "when does this make sense?"

I made the shift from traditional eCommerce platforms to headless and PWA builds around 2018. At the time, it felt like a bet. Now it's just how I work. The technology matured faster than most developers' perceptions of it.

Where PWAs Win

There are scenarios where PWAs genuinely outperform native apps:

• Low-connectivity environments. I've built tools for users working on construction sites, in warehouses, and in rural areas where mobile signal drops constantly. A native app that requires constant connectivity is useless there. A PWA with proper offline handling works.
• Distribution friction. App store approval cycles, mandatory updates, user reluctance to install — these aren't edge cases. They're real blockers for many projects. PWAs skip all of it. Send a link. Done.
• Cross-platform without multiplication. One codebase. One deployment. Works on iOS, Android, desktop. The dream of "write once, run anywhere" actually works here, within limits.
• Cost reality. Maintaining separate iOS and Android codebases is expensive. Not just the initial build — the ongoing maintenance, the feature parity battles, the platform-specific bugs. A well-built PWA cuts that in half or more.

Where PWAs Fall Short

I'm not going to pretend PWAs solve everything. They don't.

• iOS limitations. Apple has dragged its feet on PWA support. Push notifications only landed recently. Background sync is still limited. Storage can be cleared unexpectedly. If your users are primarily on iOS and need those features, you'll feel the pain.
• Hardware access. Bluetooth, NFC, advanced camera controls, sensors — native still wins here. If your app genuinely needs deep hardware integration, a PWA probably isn't the right choice.
• Perceived legitimacy. Some users and stakeholders still equate "real app" with "in the app store." That perception is outdated, but it exists. Sometimes you have to build native just to satisfy that expectation.
• Performance ceiling. For graphics-intensive applications or games, native will always have the edge. PWAs are fast enough for most business applications, but they're not competing with Unity.

Why I Still Choose PWAs

Most of the applications I build are data-driven tools. Forms, dashboards, content management, workflow automation. For these use cases, PWAs make more sense than native almost every time.

The users I work with are often in the field — literally. They're on tablets in warehouses, phones on job sites, laptops with inconsistent Wi-Fi. The ability to handle network interruption gracefully isn't a nice-to-have. It's the baseline requirement.

PWAs let me build for that reality without doubling my workload or my clients' budgets.

The Maturity Question

The tooling has caught up. Service worker APIs are stable. Workbox handles most caching patterns out of the box. Browser support is consistent enough that you're not fighting compatibility issues on every feature.

The frameworks have caught up too. Nuxt, Next, SvelteKit — they all have first-class PWA support. You're not bolting on PWA capabilities as an afterthought. You're building with them from the start.

If someone tells you PWAs are "not ready yet," they're working from information that's several years out of date.

Making the Decision

The question isn't "PWA or native?" It's "what does this specific application actually need?"

If you need app store presence for marketing reasons, build native. If you need Bluetooth or NFC, build native. If you need maximum iOS feature support, build native or accept the limitations.

For everything else — which is most business applications — PWAs deserve serious consideration. Not as a compromise. As a deliberate architectural choice.