PWA: an app without the App Store — who it suits

A company wants an icon on its customers' phone screens but is not ready for a multi-million rouble budget and six months of development. A PWA — a progressive web app — covers a significant part of that request for a price comparable to reworking the website. Let us look at what you get and what you do not.

What it is technically

A PWA is an ordinary website with three additions: a manifest with icons and display settings, a service worker for caching and offline operation, and mandatory HTTPS. Once installed on the home screen it opens without an address bar and looks no different from a native app. No app store, no review process; updates happen the next time it is opened, just like a website. The specifications and compliance checklists are documented in detail on web.dev.

What you get

• An icon on the home screen and a full-screen launch with no browser chrome.
• Offline operation, or operation on a poor connection, thanks to caching — critical in the metro, in lifts and in shopping centres.
• Push notifications: fully on Android, with limitations and only after installation on iOS.
• Instant updates with no wait for review and no need to persuade users to upgrade.
• One codebase for desktop and mobile instead of three.
• Indexing in search engines — something a native app is fundamentally denied.

Where you hit the ceiling

The limitations are mostly on the iOS side. Push notifications only work for apps installed on the home screen, and delivery is less reliable. Background geolocation, NFC payments and deep Bluetooth work are unavailable. Offline storage capacity is limited, and unused data may be cleared by the system after several weeks of inactivity. If your scenario requires anything from that list, a PWA will not do — you need native development.

Who it suits best

Booking and scheduling services, where quick access to the calendar is what matters. Internal tools for staff that you would rather not publish in stores and distribute to the whole world. Media sites and catalogues with a high share of mobile traffic from search. B2B portals with a limited circle of users. Internal panels for ERP and CRM systems used from a tablet on the shop floor or on site.

Who it does not suit

• Games and apps with heavy graphics — performance will be noticeably lower.
• Fintech requiring hardware biometrics and a secure key store.
• Services with background location tracking — delivery, logistics, sports trackers.
• Products for which the app store is the main acquisition channel.

The economics

Turning an existing responsive website into a PWA costs from 150,000 to 400,000 roubles and takes 3–6 weeks. Building a PWA from scratch including the interface starts at 500,000 roubles. Compare that with 1.5–3 million and six months for a native app on two platforms. Maintenance is cheaper too: no annual fees, no mandatory adaptation to new OS versions twice a year, no waiting for review on every fix.

A sensible strategy

Start with a PWA as a way to test the hypothesis. Within a couple of months you will know whether people install your service on their home screen, whether they come back and whether they respond to notifications. If the retention metrics hold up and you hit the ceiling of what is possible, move to native development — by then you will have proven scenarios and a real understanding of your audience. That sequence saves millions on apps that would otherwise have been written blind. You can see examples of our web products in the portfolio, and discuss your own case here.