PWA vs Native App
Has anyone here had immense success with a PWA? I'm considering it over a native app & would appreciate people's input. Thanks
u/Giggz_on_call — 4 days ago
r/PWA
[OC] I spent months building a plant-care app as a solo dev — roast it for me.
Upfront: I'm the creator, this isn't a paid ad, just a project I build alone.
I started Floravia because I kept killing my plants and every existing app was either a wall of ads or paywalled to death. The idea is simple: photo → ID → care plan, plus an AI you can ask real questions ("why is my monstera drooping?").
What I actually want is honest feedback: what's missing? what does it misidentify? what would stop you using it?
Free to try, no card: floravia.app
And if you'd rather not click, happy to answer plant questions right here anyway. 🌱
u/VastStorage4125 — 7 days ago
New BUG in chrome when installing PWAs (webapk) from the same domain (and different directories)
There is a recent BUG (it worked before!): if you INSTALL a PWA (webapk) and if you have many different PWAs under the same domain (but in different directories), only the first one installs. Chrome says "already installed" and does not produce the APK, even if every PWA/WEBAPP has different name, and ID. In previous versions it was possible. So there is an big error. Calling const installedRelatedApps = await navigator.getInstalledRelatedApps?.(); gives no answer. (which is correct).
u/Robert__Sinclair — 7 days ago
Shipped a React PWA to Google Play as a TWA, offline-first, no backend, and learned some painful Play Billing lessons
I built a small PWA (a 30-minute guided Ashtanga yoga practice generator) and shipped it to the Play Store as a Trusted Web Activity. Sharing the build because it's a fairly "pure" PWA and I hit a few gotchas that might save someone time.
The stack / shape
- React 19 + Vite + TypeScript, no backend at all. Everything (preferences, practice history, entitlement) lives on-device.
vite-plugin-pwa(Workbox) for the service worker; fully offline-capable once loaded, including the audio (voice cues, bell, ambient loops are precached).- State-based navigation wired into the History API so the Android back gesture steps through screens instead of closing the app.
- Pose art is inline SVG, code-split and lazy-loaded so the home screen stays light.
- Same codebase serves the web app and the installed Android app (TWA via Bubblewrap). No separate native code.
Things that went well
- PWA-first meant "write once, ship to web + Play" genuinely worked.
- Offline audio via the Web Audio API (gapless ambient loop with an
AudioBufferSourceNode+GainNode, which<audio loop>couldn't do without an audible seam). - Privacy as a feature: no accounts, no tracking, no ads, no network calls. Easy to reason about, and my favourite selling point.
The painful lessons (Play Billing in a TWA) I added a one-time in-app purchase via the Digital Goods API + Play Billing. This is where TWAs get sharp edges:
- Play automatic protection requires minSdk 24+, my first bundle (minSdk 23) was rejected outright.
- The Digital Goods API is only injected by Chrome-backed TWA providers. My default browser is Brave, which verifies the TWA (so it ran full-screen, no URL bar, looked totally fine) but does not inject
window.getDigitalGoodsService. Result:hasDGService: false,PaymentRequest.show()rejecting instantly, no purchase sheet, and hours of chasing the wrong things. Switching the default browser to Chrome fixed it immediately. - Play's newer "purchase options" product model needs a buy option flagged legacy/backwards-compatible, or the android-browser-helper bridge can't see the product via
getDetails. - Post-install Play Billing client race, right after a fresh install, the service can be not-ready and the first purchase attempt silently fails; force-stop + reopen clears it.
Net takeaway: a TWA is a great way to get a PWA into the Play Store, but billing only works for users whose provider browser supports Digital Goods (effectively Chrome). I handle the rest gracefully, when isBillingAvailable() is false, the app just doesn't offer the purchase and stays fully functional as the free tier.
Disclosure: I made this, so there's a link, but I'm posting mainly for the build discussion. Happy to go deeper on any part (service worker setup, the Web Audio looping, the TWA billing wiring).
Play Store (TWA): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashtanga30.twa
Anyone else shipped TWAs with billing? Curious how you handle the non-Chrome-provider gap, that feels like the biggest weakness of the TWA-plus-billing path right now.
u/Squirlynl — 11 days ago