What is Magento 2 PWA Studio?

Developers never sleep. Every year, technological trends are changing to the best. A successful business should respond to new trends and introduce them to itself. The speed with which business innovations are introduced ensures that new customers are attracted and improves the user experience.

The most popular trend is the development of a Progressive Web App — (PWA) Magento 2® today. This integration attracted the great attention of Magento users.

Below, we analyze Magento PWA’s structure, advantages, and disadvantages.

1. What is Progressive Web App (PWA)?
2. Magento PWA Studio
3. Advantages and disadvantages of PWA
4. Conclusion

What is Progressive Web App (PWA)?

Progressive Web App (PWA) is a web development technology that allows a website to look like a regular web page in a browser, but work like a mobile app. Google’s team presented this technology in 2015. Now you don’t need to develop any separate website, IOS, or Android plugin, and PWA is available on any device with a web browser. At the same time, as PWAs are website shortcuts, memory consumption is minimal.

Below, we compare the visual part of the Pinterest PWA and its native app on the Pinterest example.

As you can see, the difference between the two is insignificant and lies in: the menu position and the “Add” has different location.

PWA websites are built with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS web technologies. Unlike regular sites, once you have installed PWA, you can interact with it even offline. It works very quickly when you are online. PWA can synchronize data and update it in the device cache. It works like the news feed in the Facebook app. When there is no connection, the information is taken from the cache, and you see the content from the last update. But as soon as the connection is restored, the app will download the latest information from the server. And it will also update the data in the cache so you can see the latest recordings and photos.

Many well-known brands use PWA-based applications as a basic or as an addition to a mobile application. Brands include Twitter, Tinder, Telegram, Starbucks, Forbes, AliExpress, Pinterest, Instagram, Lancôme, UbCurrently, and more.

Magento PWA Studio

Magento PWA Studio is a set of tools provided by Magento to set up the PWA for the Magento site. Tools work only for Magento 2.0 platform version and higher. Let’s take a closer look at the main progressive web app’s advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages and disadvantages of PWA

Many studies indicate that clients spend 89.2% of their time on mobile apps and that they make most purchases from mobile phones. Therefore, PWA is becoming more and more popular. PWA technologies work together to improve the Magento store. Here are some of the benefits you can expect.

PROS:

1. The Add-to-Home-Screen feature. To download the app in the standard way, you enter the marketplace, find an app and install it. A frequent story when programs are removed due to a lack of memory. Therefore, it is more profitable for users to allow saving the link on the home screen from the browser. Look at how this function works on the Pinterest website.
2. As mentioned above, PWA works with any operating system (IOS, Android) to suit any device (phone, tablet, etc.). The PWA size does not exceed 1 Mb.
3. The installs are from the official site. You do not need to place an application in Play Store, App Store, Windows Store, etc.
4. A bold plus is the possibility of working offline. If you have lost the Internet, you can view and add more products to your shopping cart. The order is generated automatically when the customer has an internet connection because the data is stored in the cache.
5. PWA loads faster than usual websites due to intensive caching.
6. It is possible to request permission to send Push Notifications in PWA with which you remain in contact with your customers. Statistics show that push messages are more attractive to users, which means you will interact with more old and new customers.
7. Development of PWA is cheaper because coding for different operating systems is unnecessary, whereas standard programs require other codes for Android and iOS. The development of native applications takes more time and effort and thus costs more.
8. Security above all. Therefore, PWA uses the HTTPS security protocol.

CONS:

1. If you choose to move from Magento to another eCommerce platform, you will need to rebuild your PWA using the new platform’s tools and technologies.
2. PWA Studio is incompatible with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other popular eCommerce platforms. If you want to use PWA Studio, you’ll need to build your PWA on top of Magento.
3. The Magento Native App has a default theme (Luma & Blank), and the Magento PWA is the core topic of Venia PWA Studio. The basic theme is simple in design and requires additional development to be more attractive for a business that wants to stand out. 

Conclusion

PWA is a promising technology today that will soon be essential for website development. Magento had taken the lead in providing a practical and valuable set of development tools when they first realized the potential of PWA.

Knowing how to make the most of PWA Studio will benefit your Magento-based website best. Ensuring high compatibility is a prerequisite for always high performance.

Please contact us if you wish to optimize your Magento store.