The State of Progressive Web Applications : an investigation of the experiences and opinions of developers in the industry

Sammanfattning: Mobile applications can be developed using a variety of different techniques and technologies. One of the most recent of these techniques is the Progressive Web Application (PWA), a cross-platform solution that is built exclusively using common web technologies. The technique has great potential to become a major competitor to native applications but is currently held back by a few rather significant limitations. This project was initiated because of a significant lack of academic research on the topic of PWA, and a perceived poor level of knowledge in the industry about the technique. The goal of the project was to determine if PWA deserved broader utilization or if the current low level of adoption was justified. During the project, two surveys were conducted. The first survey asked mobile application developers from companies in different countries about things such as their knowledge of, experience with, and opinions of PWA. The second survey asked similar questions but was instead answered by lecturers in higher education in Sweden only. The results of this project show that the average level of knowledge of PWAis very low and that developers’ opinions of the technique are quite negative. The limitations of PWA were found to be few but crippling to its potential to achieve widespread adoption.