What do you call an app which provides you full features of any native app but without actually taking any of your device spaces in general?
It seems like a myth, Right? Well, PWA is your MythBusters for now. PWA or Progressive Web apps are such apps that run on any standard client browser, but they provide almost every native app feature.
PWAs are like miniature versions of native applications which get perfectly worked upon on any supported browser and are not device-dependent. It can work on any device, whether it is windows, android, Linux, iOS, or any other OS. You don’t have to make a different version of PWA or Progressive Web applications for every device.
Progressive websites or web applications are growing in popularity to build apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS that offer a level of experience and performance that no other native app can offer. If you are building your own PWA, then make sure your app possesses the following characteristics.
- Should work with most devices and laptops without creating a separate version for every platform.
- Should have offline connectivity through service workers.
- It should have fit in factors along with a responsive design.
On this page
Building Progressive Web Apps with React:
The first and foremost important thing you will be needing while building your first PWA is a framework. Among all the frameworks, the framework that comes out as the best framework is React. React preferred over other framework just because on the basis of these two reasons,
- The framework gets tested with more than 2 billion people daily because the owner of this framework,” Facebook,” uses it on their own website too, and there is yet no such day where the framework crashed.
- React is the foundation of React Native, which helps you to transfer PWAs built by React into native apps quickly.
Each React component is built on JavaScript, which provides it a feature-rich environment to make PWA’s on it. Some advantages of JavaScript are:
- Most of the developers now are comfortable working around with JavaScript. They will not prefer learning new languages over JavaScript.
- Rich data can pass through the DOM.
- React.JS supports both raw and JSX JavaScript. JSX is an XML-like syntax for writing JavaScript.
Building Progressive Web Apps with Polymer:
Polymer is an open-source framework which is developed by Google. It works around with the best of the range of templates and provides the best documentation. The polymer contains many Progressive Web App tools, which can be used for the building of Progressive Web Applications.
It can be called one of the most efficient tools to develop PWA because of its ability to simplify the whole development process of Progressive Web Applications. If you want to develop your progressive web app in less time, you can choose the Polymer framework.
Building Progressive Web Apps with AngularJS:
AngularJS is the oldest tool that has been used for quite a long time now for making applications or PWAs and stuff. The release of AngularJS version 5 incorporates the developers to build a Progressive Web App.
Angular has a pretty large support community and remains in sync continuously with Google for regular updates. It is the most widely used tool by every significant company for making Progressive web applications.
It encompasses all the techniques which help in simplifying the process and building a progressive web app easily. Some of its features are,
- Provides a list of extensive features to assist in the development of applications.
- Based on JavaScript, for deploying reliable and dynamic applications.
- Gets listed as one of the top leading tools due to its unmatched performance.
- Creates a PWA with the help of Jason Configuration.
Building Progressive Web Apps with PWA Builder
Google supports most PWA tools that are available on the internet, but this tool, named PWA Builder, is supported by Microsoft. This tool works on converting the major websites into progressive web applications. Most web development companies have been using these tools to develop some constructive features.
Some advantages of PWA Builder are:
- It helps in backing up the offline data entries into an online website.
- Provides cross-platform features like the authentication of users.
- Everything gets saved in the PWA builder as a copy.
- Better routing and configuration helps in boosting performance.
Building Progressive Web Apps with Lighthouse
It is an open-source, automated tool that improves the quality of website pages or progressive web applications. It can run on any website which requires authentication. It also has audits for PWA or for performance and accessibility.
You can run this framework in Devtools of Chrome from the CLI (Command-Line Interface). After you give the lighthouse framework a link to audit, it runs a series of steps against the page and then gives results in the form of a report.
Building Progressive Web Apps with Vue
Vue is an open-source framework that is the most demanded in recent times because of its easy coding features. It is incorporated and used by many big names like- Alibaba and Laravel.
Vue is the framework that provides many official packages. Mobile development companies often help entrepreneurship to develop their website into Progressive Web Applications.
The first look of vue is similar to that of a native app. Some features are,
- Provides fast product delivery.
- Has the ability to build applications.
- Has clear and detailed documentation.
Conclusion
These were some of the tools which you can use to develop a progressive web app. Every framework has its own advantages and disadvantages. Besides the above tools, you can also choose numerous tools like Lighthouse, Ionic, Knockout, etc. Choosing the right tools depends on which framework will suit your website needs.
React, and AngularJs are tools based on JavaScript. Almost every developer uses JavaScript to make applications and design websites because it is easy to adopt the working of these tools. If you get confused while making a PWA, you can hire some PWA developer to make an app for your website.
Image source: Freepik Premium
