Top 5 Best Progressive Web App Development Frameworks & Tools

    Jul 10, 202012 min read6103 viewsUpdated:Nov 27, 2024
    Top 5 Best Progressive Web App Development Frameworks & Tools

    Technology has drastically improved every aspect of our lives. It can be the act of watching television or the way we have incorporated the usage of mobile phones, laptops, and other such devices into our everyday life. Businesses are pushed to play along this curve. The adoption of smartphones and smart devices has grown and hence has influenced billions of users. Statistica records over 3.8 billion people projected to be smart device users in the next three years. With technology, smartphones have also evolved and this has given rise to Progressive Web App. Progressive Web Apps have risen in popularity as a way to develop apps with good performance and efficient usability using Javascript, CSS, and HTML.

    It is this immersive experience and seamless performance across different devices that gives progressive web applications an edge over their native counterparts. Over the years the progressive web applications have had their share of recognition in the corporate world as well. The SEO-friendliness and higher adaptability are the main advantages that give the required leverage the entrepreneurs want.

    Moreover, the advent of frameworks like AngularJS, Vue.js, and ReactJS works well with any Progressive Web App Development company around the globe. In this article we attempt to brief out the best frameworks for building progressive web apps. However, these frameworks have specific pros and cons, which should be considered while selecting the right framework, suitable as per one's business needs. To get started with, let's know more about progressive web apps.

    What are Progressive Web Apps?

    One of the most challenging tasks for the development community has been the ability to Connect the power of the web with that of a mobile. In 2015, things changed when a number of tools and frameworks entered the picture with the motive of developing the perfect blend of performance and wide reachability. Hereafter the term Progressive web apps term was coined by a Google Chrome Engineer, Alex Russell after the native apps failed to deliver a highly immersive experience.

    These apps have high adaptation potential and can be adapted to various hardware, platforms, and devices. Progressive web apps enhance web applications in order to deliver native app-like experiences. It also provides the room for fast loading, and features such as offline accessibility, push notifications, background updates, access to the device camera, microphone, storage, and a few more. Here are a few pros and cons of PWA.

    Pros of PWA

    Driving Engagement and Conversions

    PWAs offer higher engagement and conversion rates as Compared to regular websites. This is because of their app-like appearance, behavior and UX.

    Media Giants’ buy-in

    Media giants like Instagram, Twitter, Microsoft Office, Uber, Forbes, Alibaba, New York Times, Pinterest, and other leading companies use PWA as their applications for a variety of platforms.

    Endorsement by major platforms

    PWA has been embraced by Google and Microsoft for Android and Windows and promotes it as well as accepts it in google store and microsoft store b y providing various development tools and enhancements, evaluation, and addition of high-quality progressive apps to the marketplace.

    Technical Advantages

    PWAs are lightweight and can be installed and loaded with ease as compared to native mobile and desktop apps. They are also adaptive and responsive and this is why they have a technical advantage over native apps.

    Short Time To Market

    PWAs take less time to develop and this helps to share the codebase across platforms. Using javascript and certain tools can help speed up the process even more.

    Cons of PWA

    One of the major points against progressive web apps is the rejection it faces from Apple despite the fact that PWAs provide complete macOS support. Apart from this PWAs still face limitations in certain ways and these are the ones that separate a progressive website from a traditional website.

    Progressive web apps need to have the below requirements:

    • Works well with most browsers and devices with a progressive codebase.
    • Fits all screen and form factors with the help of responsive design.
    • Leverage offline connectivity(HTTPS required) and re-engagement tools.
    • Leverage a web app manifest in order to describe the used resources.

    Top Progressive Web App Frameworks and Tools in 2020

    There are multiple frameworks and tools for building a progressive web app, each having different capacities and capabilities, Popularity, documentation, backing, performance, and specifics to name a few. These play important roles in the consideration of frameworks and tools that work best for PWA development. A well-suited framework should ideally speed up the rendering and development process as opposed to ones with bloated size and detrimental project pace. In this article we chalk out the best frameworks to build progressive web apps, emphasizing the benefits and drawbacks of each.

    Angular

    Angular was first introduced by Google in the year 2009 and is considered to be the most popular javascript framework. It uses the Javascript ecosystem to build robust and reliable apps. The release of version 5, in 2017, saw new service workers for in-built support provided by the @angular/service-worker module and was the first version to support PWA. This script allows creating a PWA via JSON configuration instead of building the application from scratch. With the ongoing releases, the features are modified. In Angular 6 we saw two additional CLI commands that help simplify the downloading and installing process of a web app on a device.

    Angular had been notorious for not being able to cope up with complex dynamic applications. However, with the recent release of Angular 10 in the Month of June, we see these ongoing bug fixes and a major change in the environment. In terms of performance, apps created with this framework are not inferior to apps built with other leading frameworks. The credit for angular’s surging popularity goes to the developer's team who have maintained it for years and launches new versions every six months to cope up with the market requirements and resolve the existing issues. The framework is complicated as opposed to its rivals and hence requires high expertise to work with. Hence it is advisable for any AngularJS Development Company to hire a dedicated team for the required project.

    Pros:

    • Large community and extensive support and maintenance from google
    • Implementation of a well defined methodology
    •  MVC framework in order to develop stable apps
    • IntelliSense and Typescript presence
    • New versions released with a marginal learning curve

    Cons:

    • needs a high level of expertise and experience in older versions
    • It's complicated as opposed to its counterparts
    • One has to learn the typescript language as it has a steep learning curve

    Ionic

    Ionic was established in 2013 as an open-source SDK. It is based on Apache Cordova and Angular framework. Ever Since it has been involved in over 5 million hybrid app development. What makes Ionic ideal for the development is its massive library of components for both Android and iOS along with a rich PWA toolkit that incorporates pre-built routing, UI components, and unit tests. These are used by Ionic app developers in order to develop web pages to run inside the device browser with the help of WebView.

    Ionic has an entirely adaptable tech stack and takes into account using contending structures (React, Angular, or Vue) to fabricate applications. Because of this, developers with different abilities can easily assemble an Ionic application. The structure additionally offers a library of more than 250 pre-assembled modules for adding local gadget usefulness to the arrangements.

    Ionic comes in two releases: Community and Enterprise. The versions share core functionality, however the previous is focused on autonomous designers, while the other has the corporate application advancement center. Along these lines, the Enterprise release accompanies the warning and support services from Ionic specialists in such issues as group training, version migration, and maintenance. Since Ionic renders realistic components by means of the program, in media-heavy applications it can definitely concede the moment a full picture appears on the screen. 

    Pros
    • It Lessens the cost of application development for its open-source and free
    • One of the tools used to create PWA that accompanies the most limited expectation to learn and developers can use it with ease
    • It's easier to maintain with the help of built-in browser tools and debugging tools
    • It offers Huge module library for getting to APIs
    • It can be used to develop hybrid apps as well
    • It consists of a large developer community that includes web and mobile app developers
    • Its library consists of plugins that help in saving time and efforts on coding
    Cons
    • There are frequent updates for meeting the needs of mobile and web domains
    • The web application must be updated with the latest version of Ionic

    Vue.JS

    Vue is currently one of the quickest evolving libraries in light of the ease in coding and rapid rendering. It considers scaling of the venture with an additional preferred advantage of additional packages.Like React and Angular, Vue is also one of the most mainstream dynamic JavaScript systems for building PWAs. In contrast to Angular and React which are in huge part determined by Google and Facebook, Vue was made by a single person. It is open-source (circulated under the MIT permit) and driven generally by its community.

    vue is easy to work with. It accompanies numerous official bundles—for server-side rendering, directing and state management. Also, Vue's people group can be recognized for its unmistakable and thorough documentation that extraordinarily adds to the system's shallow expectation to learn and adapt making it the reason to be the best PWA framework to work with.

    Despite the greatness of the framework, there are way less Vue developers available as opposed to React or Angular. In this way, if a business needs an application worked with Vue explicitly, it is probably going to experience an issue finding and development team. 


    Pros
    • It is supported by Laravel and Alibaba
    • The simple nature of the code brings down the learning curve
    • Basic structures and highlights are inspired by Angular1 and React
    • Quick rendering with Virtual DOM
    • Adaptable to set up with the assistance of TypeScript and JSX
    • It has a flexible platform
    Cons
    • It has a smaller support team as compared to Angular and React
    • Too much flexibility pushes for performance issues
    • VueJS requires a significant transformation in the code in the event that you need to relocate the current Angular 1.5 application to Vue

    ReactJS

    Launched by Facebook in 2013,React is often one of the top choices for Progressive Web App development for its wide JavaScript library and an enormous network. . It is a JavaScript library for interface planning. As of now one of the prevailing libraries for frontend web development, React can be utilized to make both multi page applications and single-page applications (SPA) with content progressively loading and changing within a single page. Utilizing extra JavaScript libraries, for example, NextJS and GatsbyJS permits creating server-side and static (customer side) rendered pages, API co-operations, and steering.

    React has fantastic support, documentation, a tremendous online network, and a few prominent activities added to its belt, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter Light. Firmly identified with React Native (likewise upheld by Facebook), React is a piece of the couple of systems used to give consistent multi-gadget and cross-stage client experience, be it with web, dynamic or close local applications.

    Pure JavaScript lies in the base of React and it utilizes JSX to utilize render capacities for interfacing HTML structures. It is easy for a reliable ReactJS Development company to develop highly flexible and scalable apps. This gives developers comfort which consequently makes React one of the top PWA systems and tools.

    Pros
    • Community support is large and provides real-time assistance
    • It has an extensive ecosystem and libraries
    • Apps have higher flexibility and scalability as opposed to its counterparts
    • It facilitates fast rendering with virtual-DOM
    • Developers can utilize a similar code for local and web applications
    • Unlike Angular JS the learning code is moderate

    Cons

    • It needs information on JSX other than JavaScript
    • It is difficult than writing code in JavaScript and HTML
    • High flexibility prompts issues on occasion
    • There is no legitimate documentation to date
    • Methodology is not clearly defined
    • It faces difficulty in Migration from AngularJS due to JSX

    Polymer

    The polymer has been created by Google and is open source too. It has a wide variety of tools and instruments, web components, and formats. Since the operation aspect is highly simplified, it makes an excellent choice for PWA development.Additionally, the devices and components inside the framework are supported by several users. This is the reason Why apps made on polymer are highly adaptable and accessible. The way that it utilizes HTML, CSS, or JavaScript makes it an autonomous structure. 

    Pros

    • It includes full support which includes routing , data tier as well as responsive layouts
    • The API is less complex as opposed to other frameworks
    • Debugging tools is unnecessary with the Presence of embedded development tools
    • Great documentation
    • It has wide range of components across browsers

    Cons

    • It is not an SEO friendly framework
    • The loading time is high
    • There has been no official IDE

    Conclusion

    Although, the above-mentioned frameworks have their set of drawbacks over time each has managed to deliver extreme convenience to developers.It is hence crucial in Choosing the right framework for the Progressive web apps as per the requirement, as it determines id the developed app will be responsive, scalable, interactive, robust, and user-friendly. Hence it is advisable to take a developer’s input in choosing the framework required for building a progressive web app. 

    Also Check out our Article: 12 Best Mobile App Development Frameworks In 2020

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