Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) - Which is Better for Your Website

We have seen a drastic growth in the development of the web and almost every business is now available on the internet. However, the unreliability and the slowness of the mobile web are some of the major concerns of users. Many new technologies such as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) were introduced as a solution to these issues. These technologies promise to offer a faster, richer, and immersive experience to inspire and engage the end-users. They release at the right time when the use of mobile is growing faster.

We will discuss different aspects of PWAs and AMPs to determine which technology is better instead of investing money in mobile app development.

Also, we will discuss the pros and cons of the two platforms, how they work, and the need for these tools.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

A product by Google, Accelerated Mobile Pages aka AMP is an open source project which facilitates developers to develop web pages which load faster on mobile devices. This gives your website a feel that you will get from Android and iOS app development without actually developing an app. This is developed in JavaScript and provides seamless and near-instant experience compared to regular HTML. In 2016, Google incorporated AMPs to its mobile search and pages that utilize AMP could reflect on SERP with an ‘AMP’ label. AMP removes all unnecessary scripts to save bandwidth; hence, we can only see a plain page with crucial information without the fancy designing features. Removing the script may impact the user-experience, but it ensures that the information delivered to mobile users in the fastest possible time.

Important Characteristics of AMPs

• Mobile-first method: Better mobile SEO and improve keyword rankings for mobile devices

• Improved Speed: minimized the load time for page and speeds up the website

• Complete control over website visuals: publishers will have complete control over the business design and visual

Advantages of AMPs

• Faster page loading, up to 4 times

• Better mobile SEO and improve keyword rankings

• Support all ad facility and ad formats

• Very useful for content-based websites such as news publishers

• The AMP version website has more chance to show their content on the front page of search engine

Disadvantages of AMPs

The major reason behind developing AMP is to improve the loading speed of the website; hence, there are some limitations on visuals as follows:

• Lazy load features for images

• Less user engagement as compared to HTML websites

• Not helpful in improving search engine rankings

• Difficult to keep track of user activity on AMP pages

• Not suitable for e-commerce websites

Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

The Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are the web pages that look like a basic mobile application and offer the familiar interaction and navigation. It also encourages your users to come back to your website by providing fast loading, push notifications, and offline web pages. The PWA supports all modern web capabilities that make them seem to users as native or traditional mobile applications.

Important Characteristics of PWA

For a mobile application to be considered as a PWA, it needs to integrate the following features:

• Content loading: the app should be responsive on any devices, including mobile, tablet, desktop, or any other device with web capability.

• Progressive: this should serve the requirements of every individual irrespective of the browser choice

• Connectivity: the app should work with offline or on crumbling networks.

• Installable: this should be easy to install and offer a hassle-free service to the end-users.

• Discoverable: it should be recognized as app.

• App-like: it should provide app like experience with respect to navigation and interaction. It can use the app-shell model.

• Re-engageable: the PWA supports features such as push notifications that make re-engagement easy.

• Up-to-Date: keeping your app updated is important.

• Linkable: sharing option is must; one should be able to share the app through URL.

Advantages of PWAs

• No app updates or installation required

• Better page load speed irrespective of the network’s quality

• Can be used offline

• Easily accessed via the home screen icon

• Expands the reach and a higher rate of engagement with features such as push notifications

• Facilitates smooth animations and navigation

• Unique customer experience

• Less intrusive and secure

• Relatively less-expensive than native apps

Disadvantages of PWAs

Despite the common benefits, PWAs show limited capabilities in case of the device’s hardware integration and features.

• Does not support all native functionalities

• Update system settings or logs

• Call functionalities without the dialer dialog

• Not compatible with all devices

• Access to hardware features and sensors

• Access to a camera, contacts, alarm, calendar, browser, etc.

• Does not support all browsers

• Does not support all hardware features

With the above details, you must have got a clear idea about both the technologies, still the questions arrive, which one is better AMP or PWA?

You cannot pick one of them as a winner; AMP and PWA perform best in combination. As one offers you quick content, on the other hand, the other makes sure that users interact and engage with the website. Selecting between these two also depends on the style of your business. AMP is a good option for websites with less or no media and has mostly static content, for example, news publications. But if you are dealing with a site with media-oriented websites, such as an e-commerce store, you will let customers have a user-friendly experience without actually instating mobile application. In such situations, PWA will be a wise choice. If you don’t have a budget for iOS or Android mobile app development, you can just go for either of the above technologies to get expected results.