A progressive web app — the industry name — is a website that installs on a phone like an app. Customers add it to their home screen straight from your site, it opens full screen with its own icon, and it keeps working when the signal drops.
What it can do
- Install from your site. On iPhone, Add to Home Screen from Safari; on Android, an install prompt. No app store, no review process.
- Work without signal. Pages already opened still load, and anything entered is held on the phone and sent when a connection comes back.
- Update instantly. Change the site and the app changes with it. Nobody is stuck on an old version.
- Send notifications. Installed web apps can send push notifications on Android and, since iOS 16.4, on iPhone too.
One build instead of three
A website plus an iPhone app plus an Android app is three things to build, pay for and keep in sync. A web app is one: the same code is your website and your app, so they never drift apart.
Built this way
Our quoting app for mobile mechanics is a web app on plain HTML, htmx and Cloudflare. It installs on the mechanic's phone, quotes jobs from the driveway with or without signal, and the customer books and pays on the same link.
When you still want an app-store app
Some things still call for a native app: heavy use of the camera or Bluetooth, deep background work, or wanting to be found in the App Store. For those we build in Flutter, so one codebase covers iPhone and Android — and it can share the same Cloudflare back end as your website.
Frequently asked questions
Do customers have to download anything from an app store?
No. They add it to their home screen from your website. Updates arrive the next time they open it.
Does it work on iPhone?
Yes. Safari's Add to Home Screen installs it, and installed web apps on iOS 16.4 and later can receive push notifications.
Can my existing website become an app?
Usually, as part of a rebuild: we add the parts that let it install and work offline, on the same pages and addresses.