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With the advent of technology and easy internet access, smartphones have gained a lot of popularity. Most of the time, we are glued to our applications. Today, we will talk about the top Progressive Web App Framework in detail.
In these torrid times, it has really become important for the small business to reach the customers and the easiest way to connect with them is by using mobile applications.
It is the best channel to reach to the customers and inform them about your products as well as any offers you are rolling out. The Cost To Make A Website is not low as well.
In recent times, it has served as the best marketing tool which can be used to reach new potential customers and connect with them directly. Recently, progressive web applications (PWA) have emerged which provide users with a native experience and do not require them to install applications.
Progressive Web Application extracts the best out of native web applications and Web Apps. Progressive Web applications are built with modern APIs to deliver native experience and they can be used to connect with all users similar to Web Apps.
In progressive web apps, modern capabilities are added to the browser, and web manifest allows your application to be reliable and installable.
Twitter has reported a 65% increase in pages per session and 75% more tweet, after moving to progressive web apps. Similarly, Nikkei observed 58% more subscriptions and also saw an increase in inactive users.
Every good thing mostly comes with some issues.
React is an open-source project which is developed and maintained by Facebook. There are many JavaScript libraries available in React which you can use to build Progressive Web Applications. So, it’s a top-class Progressive Web App Framework.
It is one of the most used frameworks for building frontends. It can be used to develop both single-page applications as well as multi-page applications. React uses Virtual DOM so that application rendering is fast and seamless.
React allows you to create components using JSX and these components can be reused across different web applications. You can even open-source the complete component which can be used by various other teams.
Benefits of React
Disadvantages of React
Angular was created by Google in 2010 and is the most mature and widely used framework to build web applications. It is packaged with most of the functionalities that are needed to build a web application.
In 2017, Angular 5 was the first version to support Progressive Web Application.
It added a dedicated service worker script, which allows you to create progressive web applications, by using JSON configuration.
This allowed developers with less expertise also to create web applications with ease.
Benefits of Angular
Disadvantages of Angular
You might not have heard about Vue as it is pretty new as compared to Angular and React. But it is becoming quite popular among developers to build front end applications.
It is one of the fastest-growing libraries to build native applications.
It provides you with a complete ecosystem and it is pretty versatile. You can either use it as a library or you can use it as a full-featured framework to build a web application.
It is also compact in size and thus, a lightweight PWA Framework.
Benefits of Vue
Disadvantages of Vue
Ionic is an open-source front end Progressive Web App Framework. You can build a native-looking application using Ionic. It uses a native wrapper to run on top of mobile applications.
It was initially dependent on angular components but with the release of Ionic 4, this issue was resolved. Ionic is pretty flexible and developers can easily use React, Angular, or Vue along with Ionic to build their mobile application.
Ionic also comes with the Enterprise edition which is typically used by companies to build their web applications. It comes with technical support and training. Also, they help enterprise users with version upgrades and maintenance.
Ionic natively supports building progressive web applications by providing a rich PWA toolkit that includes UI components, pre-built routing, and a detailed guide.
Advantages of Ionic
Disadvantages of Ionic
Svelte is a relatively new PWA Framework to build web applications.
It has gained a lot of popularity recently and is adopted by various companies such as GoDaddy and The New York Times.
Svelte is inspired by React and Vue and it tries to solve shortcomings that are present in React.
Svelte tries to shift a lot of code from run time, where the virtual DOM gets updated, to compile time. Instead of virtual DOM, Svelte updates the variables precisely as the state changes.
This optimization at compile time allows you to build complex applications and the speed of the application has also improved drastically.
With version 3 released in the market, you can now easily write components. All the boilerplate code typically used to write a component is baked in the framework itself. Svelte framework aim is to be completely reactive.
Benefits of Svelte
Disadvantages of Svelte
PWA builder is one of the PWA Tools designed by Microsoft and it can be used to convert your web application to progressive web application.
You just need to enter your website URL, PWA builder will generate the code and give you manifests which can be downloaded.
When you enter your website URL, the PWA builder will build a service worker and a manifest. After that it will evaluate how well the PWA features are supported by them. It will also test basic security such as SSL and HTTPS.
You can also add additional features to your PWA by using ‘snippits’ on the PWA Builder website.
These Progressive Web App Template give you markup and code which is necessary to add APIs like geo-location, copy to clipboard, and Microsoft Graph integration.
Advantages of PWA Builder
Disadvantages of PWA Builder
Webpack Module Bundler is a powerful Progressive Web App Framework that packs various assets, such as JavaScript, CSS, Fonts, Images, and HTML, and then combines these assets which can be consumed through the browser.
It is a Progressive Web App Builder that can also provide you with loaders and plugins which can be used to optimize files before serving them in the browser.
Webpack is built and maintained by Tobias Koppers. It has large community support and almost every JavaScript framework uses Webpack.
It can also be used to add offline capabilities to your application. These capabilities are very useful to reach those customers who do not always have high-speed internet speed.
Also, sometimes when a person is traveling, you may need to save data on the device when it is not connected and sync it back to the server at a later point of time. At this point in time, offline capabilities help a lot.
Advantages of Webpack Module Bundler
Disadvantages of Webpack Module Bundler
Lighthouse is an open-source tool to test the quality of your Progressive Web application. You can automatically test using the Lighthouse tool.
Typically, companies use it in their continuous integration (CI) pipelines before releasing to catch regressions. It is a noteworthy Progressive Web App Framework.
You can run the ighthouse in multiple ways: using the command line, Chrome Devtools, or as a node module.
You just need to provide the URL and it will generate an audit report against the page. You can use detailed audit reports to correct the mistakes and run the report again.
It also specifies how you can fix the issues specified in the audit report.
Advantages of Lighthouse PWA Tool
Disadvantages of Lighthouse PWA Tool
A polymer takes its basis on JavaScript and HTML. It allows you to build components. Their tagline “Use the Platform” explains a lot about their design. It’s the Best Web App Framework.
The platform in this case is the browser. A lot of frameworks build the application on top of the browser, but polymer intends to use all the capabilities of the browser to deliver the capabilities.
It is highly adaptable and accessible. The tools and components for design polymers are available in multiple browsers.
Developers need to code HTML and JavaScript in Polymer, the PWA Framework which makes it an independent framework.
Advantages of PolymerJS
Disadvantages of PolymerJS
Knockout is a library based on the MVVM design pattern, which allows you to build reactive libraries. The frameworks take care of dividing your code into Model (data), View (UI), and View Model.
Knockout has support on almost all the browsers – IE 6+, Firefox 3.5+, and Google chrome. Steve Sanderson has design it and release date was on July 5, 2010.
It supports automatic UI refresh when the data changes. Knockout is very extensible, and you can add new components as per your need. A fine Progressive Web App Framework you will see.
Knockout is a very small and lightweight library and is independent of other frameworks. It is open-source.
Advantages of Knockout
Disadvantages of Knockout
Read also: How To Choose Best Technology Stack for Web Application Development?
When you start building a PWA, it is really important to choose the right framework to start with. There are various factors which will allow you to choose the right framework.
It is important to choose a framework that can help you support all the complex components which you want to build.
You can also consider the size and performance the framework will provide so that you have a small and seamless application.
One of the major factors is to consider your team’s expertise. You should choose a framework in which your team is comfortable and has previously worked on it. Also, you should consider the maturity of the framework while choosing a project.
One more thing to keep in mind is the fact that you really need PWA. If your website experience has a lot of navigation between pages, it might not be a good idea to build a PWA. It will degrade your experience and lead you with zero value.
You should choose the right framework for building a Progressive Web Application. We have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each of them and you should consider them when you are deciding which framework to choose.
Also, we have discussed important factors that you should keep in mind for building a PWA application.
So, go ahead and build your own Progressive Web Application and enjoy all benefits you get with it. We hope you had a great experience reading this article and it proves to be of a great value for any Web Application Development Company. Thank You.!