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Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

PWA

What it is

A progressive web app is a website that also behaves like an installed application: it can work offline or on a poor connection, it can be launched from the home screen without browser chrome, and it can receive push notifications. Nothing about it requires a different platform — it is a set of browser capabilities layered onto a normal site.

Why it matters

For a large class of products, a PWA is the pragmatic middle ground between a website and two native applications. The same codebase reaches every device, updates without an app store review, and can still be installed by the users who want it. The offline capability is often the more valuable half: a field service tool that keeps working in a basement, or a page that loads instantly on a train, is a materially better product than one that shows a browser error. The cost is a service worker, which is a caching layer with all the invalidation problems that implies.

In this track

  1. Service workers and offline (02-frontend/25-progressive-web-apps-pwa/01-service-workers-and-offline) — the proxy that sits between the page and the network, and how to cache without serving stale content.
  2. Installability and the app manifest (02-frontend/25-progressive-web-apps-pwa/02-installability-and-the-app-manifest) — the metadata that lets a browser offer to install the site, and what changes once it is installed.

Prerequisites

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