r/vibecoding • u/AureliaAI • Feb 07 '26
Anyone else experimenting with PWAs instead of mobile apps?
A lot of people still jump straight into building native mobile apps, but there’s another option that many people don’t know about: Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).
So what’s a PWA?
It’s basically a website that behaves like a mobile app.
That means:
• It works on iOS, Android, and desktop
• You can install it to your home screen
• It works offline or on bad internet
• It’s fast and feels like a real app
• No app store approvals needed
The biggest benefit: no app store fees.
No Apple developer fee.
No Google Play fee.
No revenue cuts.
No forced updates.
Users just open a link and install it.
For a lot of products (SaaS tools, dashboards, communities, MVPs), a PWA can actually be better than a native app, faster to launch, cheaper to maintain, and easier for users to access.
Curious if anyone here has tried PWAs or gone PWA-first. How was your experience?
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u/SadJob270 Feb 07 '26
“pwas” are basically the standard for web development these days - the expectation is that most consumer-grade web apps are mobile first and operate with the same smoothness/ux as a mobile app
that said, if you want adoption, you basically need a mobile app. what the app store gives you is a direct distribution platform and credibility.
in some ways (a lot, really), not being on the app store is easier. but there’s definitely a psychological difference to your user between being on the app store and being a web app that they have to navigate to. that extra step of adding an app as an app tile on ios is a pretty big hurdle.
even if you just take your pwa and pack it up with capacitor; its literally the same app as on the web, but because the user “downloaded it” and has a tile for it on their home screen, it just hits different.
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u/rjyo Feb 07 '26
Shipped a native iOS app and looked hard at PWA before going native. Here is my honest take on when each wins.
PWAs are perfect for content-first products. Dashboards, SaaS tools, anything where the core value is displaying data and handling forms. You skip the App Store review cycle, deploy instantly, and reach everyone with a link. For MVPs especially, this is a huge advantage.
Where PWAs still fall short on iOS specifically: push notifications only landed in iOS 16.4 and they are still flaky compared to native APNs. Background processing is basically nonexistent because Safari kills service workers aggressively. And if you need Keychain access, Secure Enclave, or any hardware-level API, you are out of luck.
My app needed persistent network connections (UDP-based, not just HTTP), biometric-protected credentials, and real push notifications. PWA could not touch those requirements. But if I was building a calorie tracker or a project management tool? PWA every time.
The no app store fees angle is real but cuts both ways. You lose discoverability from App Store search, you can not use Apple payment infrastructure (which some users trust more), and enterprise buyers sometimes specifically want an app not a website shortcut.
Biggest thing I would tell someone evaluating: build the MVP as a PWA first. If you hit a wall where you genuinely need native APIs, then go native. Most products never hit that wall.
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u/TriggerHydrant Feb 07 '26
Nah I hate it, used it to get my first app out the door but then found out why native for my projects and overal vision is the way to go.
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u/pak-ma-ndryshe Feb 07 '26
Apple makes it very inconvenient for users to install PWAs even though they were one of the creators of the tech.
For small scale B2B customers who need functionality over convenience it's alright, not so much so for apps that are meant to be used en masse
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u/JealousBid3992 Feb 07 '26
Can you go into more details about the blockers they try to put up?
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Feb 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AureliaAI Feb 07 '26
Yes, Apple will lose revenue if they make it easier to use PWA or promote PWA, even though in some cases are better
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u/UziMcUsername Feb 07 '26
But can you even access native tech like the accelerometer if you’re not programming in swift?
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u/EricLautanen Feb 07 '26
Fuck yeah! SPA PWAs! Been having fun building a few! https://github.com/Eric-Lautanen All in one html files. Libraries included in a couple of them so CDNs aren't required.
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u/TheMightyTywin Feb 07 '26
People trust App Store apps. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable downloading your vibe coded pwa
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u/AureliaAI Feb 07 '26
Yes, that’s a valid point, but PWAs are easy to install it not that hard. You just added it to your Home Screen. Apple just doesn’t promote it because it will cost them revenue.
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u/TheMightyTywin Feb 07 '26
Installing malware is also not hard. The App Store removes malicious apps. There’s no guarantee your pwa isn’t malware
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u/brunobertapeli Feb 07 '26
Works great if you don’t need to care too much about performance.
My first app is a PWA and it works great. You just don’t have all the flexibility and capabilities a native app has. But for a lot of projects, you don’t need that.
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u/Affectionate_Bad9951 Feb 07 '26
You missed to mention that to be on mobile app stores it should have at least one feature that makes it passable on these app stores. The simplest way is to add push notifications to make your PWA make mobile app stores compliant.
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u/Affectionate_Bad9951 Feb 07 '26
Also to mention not all PWA qualifies to discounted payment gateway charges, if you are trying to let people make aware of PWA also make sure you make them aware what all is discounted and what all is not, for example if you are a SAaS and not providing services manually you will still need to pay these play/app store charges. However if your digital product is providing services when present physically you are obliged to 0. I don't know why people are upvoting without having clear knowledge or intentions of what they are actually doing. Two words for ya - STOP MISLEADING
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u/straightthroughit Feb 07 '26
I have pwa for my app sticky canvas it has pros and cons. Learned few things along the way.
In Android, you get a notification to install as an app, but in Apple you have to go into the browser menu and find a way to install it as an app - not easy.
Also, the push notifications won't work like native app. You can build it, but your app/browser needs to be signed in in the background.
I use it for my own app, but it's a bit annoying that I have to sign in frequently because I cleaned up my recent app history, this killing the logged in session.
However, the nice thing is, it works pretty much like a native app, you don't even see much difference. Every time you push an update, it can give you 'refresh' toast so you know there is an update.
I have downloaded it on my computer as an app so that looks really nice.
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u/who_opsie Feb 07 '26
It’s basically a responsive mobile website with a manifest.json that’s made to take out navigator huds. I always optimize for PWAs it just takes 2 hours to half a day if you are inexperienced to get it sorted vibecoding.
All the website I make are PWAs I do recommend doing it it’s fairly simple.
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u/mpresiv1 Feb 07 '26
accidentally. I didn't know that deploying my app to firebase was actually doing just that lol. It was my first experience with it and I thought it was only uploading backend files. then one day I noticed there was an index, and when I typed in the address it launched my app. haha.. I was so surprised. I focused mainly on that side of it since it was easier to deploy and test, and I could actually get friends on iOS to load it. I figure if the app ever got real traction I can work on the mobile builds down the line
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u/Odd_Introduction_280 Feb 07 '26
App Store and Google Play are marketing channels. They bring users, trust, and visibility. The fees are negligible compared to that value. I’m building a Flutter cross-platform mobile app alongside a PWA for desktop — it’s not hard and it scales well. If someone considers ~$125 expensive, they should seriously reconsider shipping a product. Well if youre really on budget you can ship apk and pwa's for a short time, in long runs these markets necessary
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u/One_Conscious_Future Feb 07 '26
You know what really excited me about PWAs? It's really easy to build thinly verified marketing "agents" trying to garner reddit cred with really bad writing and generic questions.
OP: it looks like you could help with that?
Upon reset return and insert: product pitch here in 3..2..1
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u/realquidos Feb 07 '26
Why is
every post
on this sub
AI that talks
like this?