PWA Vs. App
I'm wondering how do you guys decide whether or not you should make your saas an app with react native, capacitor, etc. Or just using a PWA.
I'm currently in the middle of deciding this but I noticed that iOS doesn't support PWA push notifications which my saas needs.
This this raises the question of payments because app requires your app to use their IAP service and takes 30% of each payment.
Thoughts?
My advice is not to do a PWA if your app is heavily used on mobile, especially iOS. For our app (viyo.io) it is a PWA so it is installable. But we only added this as an extra feature. Like you, we rely on push notifications, and these do not work on iOS. We will likely work on a mobile app at some point in the future and when we do we will be using React Native.
Yeah my app will 100% be used mostly on mobile
It's quite simple: you need to take into account the requirements of your app.
e.g. if you are building a messaging app you need push notifications, so I would then go for a native/hybrid app.
I've had success using this plugin for a Cordova wrapped Angular (PWA) app deployed on iOS and Android. It gets you the build once, deploy everywhere pipeline, with full featured notification support.
https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugin-push
Yep! I'm using capacitor and working great
Yeah I'm currently using capacitor! Which does this exact thing and works really well. I'm just wondering how to do IAP
We chose to go with a PWA. Single code base, same team without the need for a different skill set and faster go to market. It's been nothing short of amazing and such a cost saver. Not sure about the push notifications issue cause our PWA works fine on both iOS and Android. We use onesignal for the notifications and it supports both chrome and safari. :)
Do the onesignal notifications work on iOS PWA? I don't think so.
I was incorrect. Sorry about that. It's just for safari on Mac. :(
Oooh so you can use onesignal for push notifications for PWAs to work on Android and iOS?
I would definitely recommend a PWA over a native mobile app. I wrote an article about PWAs over native apps here if you're curious. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/03/09/why-progressive-web-apps-will-replace-native-mobile-apps/
Go with Ionic 👏🏻
Did you take a look at the quasar framework? It allows you to generate PWA/Cordova app/SSR/android app etc.
I only evaluated it, and decided against it because only a PWA is enough for me.
I'm currently using capacitor with Nuxt framework which is working well! Just not sure how to do subscriptions and IAp. I would have gone with react native but originally I just wanted it to be a PWA
Having developed multiple native and Cordova based apps.
If you’re in the MVP phase I’d focus on one market and then expand. So build native Android, iOS, or PWA, test if it attracts customers, then expand to other platforms/rewrite if necessary.
You could also look at loading your PWA within a Cordova wrapper that way it can access native device functionality.
It depends. My rule of thumb: if this service essential feature depends on a native capability or it is a performance critical app then go with the native app path otherwise pwa. Imho push notification rarely an essential feature.
I think it totally depends on the product and target users. What's your product?
It's a saas/web app that trains people in stoic philosophy.
Ah okay, yeah I think a native app makes a lot of sense then, or at least a PWA packaged up as an app for iOS and Android markets.
I reckon you’d be better off with a native app for this. IMO consumer products are a very good fit for native apps and the iOS App Store seems to like apps related to self improvement. Stoicism is pretty trendy with the Silicon Valley folks as well (or it was) so it’s probably a great distribution channel.
Yeah this is my thinking too! This will be used 99% of time on mobile phones so just makes sense to make to native. And for the distribution channels
https://www.indiehackers.com/product/stoiclyy
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Yep! Im using capacitor and Nuxt 👌🏾
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I'm in DC too. Can't make it tonight but I'll join the group and try to be at the next one.
I've started learning Flutter also to build out a native app for my side hobby project. I need to revamp the existing web code base using API calls which can be used in Flutter also so seems like a good way to use Flutter to build out more of a native app than other builders or make the web version a PWA.