Services

Progressive web apps: install from the browser

Installable, offline-capable, push-enabled — delivered as a URL instead of a store listing.

A progressive web app looks and behaves like a mobile app — home-screen icon, offline mode, push notifications — but ships as a website: no app store, no review queue, no forced updates, one codebase for every device. For a large class of business applications — B2B portals, field-service tools, internal apps, loyalty programmes — a PWA delivers around 80% of the app experience at 30–50% of the cost of a comparable mobile build. Our Romanian team builds them for European clients, and we are equally clear about the limits: on iOS push and installation are more constrained, and deep hardware integration still favours native. We start every engagement by testing your requirements against those limits honestly.

Let’s talk about your project

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office@northdan.com · +40 752 070 247

What you get

No store gatekeepers

Updates deploy instantly to every user the moment you release — no review delays, no listing removals. Most business apps sell no digital goods in-app and pay no store commission at all.

One build, every screen

The same codebase serves desktop browsers, Android and iPhone — you maintain one application instead of a website plus two native apps.

Works where connectivity fails

Service workers cache data and queue actions offline — warehouse scanners, field technicians and travelling sales teams keep working without signal.

PWA or native: the short version

Choose a progressive web app when reach matters more than depth: one build across desktop and mobile, updates that ship the moment you deploy them, no store review standing between a fix and your users, and discoverability through search rather than through an app catalogue nobody browses.

Choose native when you need sustained background processing, tight hardware integration, or the strongest possible push experience on iOS, where Apple still limits what web applications may do. Plenty of products end up with both — a PWA carrying the broad audience and a native build for the smaller group of intensive users — and the useful advice is about sequencing those two rather than paying for both at once.

Frequently asked questions

Do PWAs really work on iPhone?

Yes, with caveats. Since iOS and iPadOS 16.4 web push works for web apps added to the Home Screen, and the permission request must follow a direct user action. Installation is less prominent than on Android, so we design an in-app prompt that guides Apple users through it.

When would you steer us to a native app instead?

When you need heavy Bluetooth or sensor access, demanding graphics, or store visibility as a distribution channel. For form-and-data business apps those cases are rarer than agencies selling native work suggest.

Can our existing website become a PWA?

Often, yes — if the frontend is reasonably modern we add the manifest, service worker and offline logic incrementally, no rewrite required. We audit your current site first and tell you which path is cheaper.