We don't treat PWAs as a fallback for teams that can't afford native. Progressive web app development done right gives you push notifications, offline access, home screen installation, and instant updates — without app store review, without a 30% revenue cut, and without maintaining three codebases. One URL, every device, zero installation friction.
Why Entalogics for PWAs
Most PWAs we audit fail at the basics — a service worker that caches nothing useful, a manifest with missing icons, no offline strategy, and push notifications that don't work on iOS because nobody tested on Safari. We build PWAs that actually pass the installability bar and behave like apps.
App shell cached in the service worker. Critical CSS inlined. Stale-while-revalidate for API data. A PWA that takes three seconds to load has already lost to the native app it was supposed to replace.
Workbox with explicit caching strategies per route — precache for the shell, stale-while-revalidate for images, network-first for API calls. Not a blanket cache-everything approach that serves stale data and confuses users.
IndexedDB for structured local data. Background Sync for queued actions. The app works on a train, in a warehouse, and in a dead zone — not just on demo WiFi.
Typed cache strategies. Typed push notification payloads. Typed manifest configuration. When the API contract changes, the service worker doesn't silently serve broken cached data.
When PWA, when not
PWAs are the right answer more often than most teams think — and the wrong answer more often than PWA advocates admit. We'll tell you on the first call which side your product sits on.
BUILD A PWA WHEN
CONSIDER NATIVE WHEN
WE SAY NO WHEN
What we build as PWAs
The shapes of PWA development services we deliver most. Each passes Lighthouse audit and behaves like a real installed app.
Product browse, cart, checkout — all cached for instant navigation. Offline product viewing. Push for abandoned carts and order updates. SEO-indexed product pages that native apps can't match.
Articles cached for offline reading. Push for breaking news. Installable on home screen. Search-engine-indexed — the one advantage no native app will ever have.
Your dashboard, installable and launchable from the dock. Offline-capable for viewing cached data. Background sync for queued actions. No app store approval cycle for every release.
Replace the spreadsheet. Installable on every device without MDM. Works offline in the warehouse. Push notifications for approvals and alerts. Zero app store involvement.
Ticket display offline. QR code scanning via browser camera API. Push reminders before events. Installable from a link in the confirmation email — no download required.
Replace a native app with a PWA when the app store overhead isn't justified. Or run both — PWA for reach, native for power users. Same backend, two distribution channels.
The playbook
PWA patterns from real production deployments — not Lighthouse demo scores.
P01
Precache for the app shell. Stale-while-revalidate for images and assets. Network-first for API calls. Each route gets the strategy that matches its data volatility.
P02
Correct icon sizes for every platform. Proper `display: standalone`. Themed splash screen. The install prompt appears when it should — not never, not always.
P03
Safari push support landed in iOS 16.4. We implement it correctly — with the right entitlements, the right UX timing, and fallback for browsers that don't support it yet.
P04
User submits a form offline, Background Sync sends it when connectivity returns. No lost data. No "please try again" messages. The app just works.
P05
Performance, accessibility, best practices, SEO — all green. Not on localhost with an empty cache, but on the deployed production URL under real conditions.
P06
Core functionality works without JavaScript. Service worker adds offline. Manifest adds installability. Each layer enhances — nothing breaks if a layer is missing.
Signature case
A B2C fashion retailer running separate iOS and Android native apps alongside a mobile website — three codebases, three teams, six-week release cycles. Consolidated into a single PWA with offline product browsing, push notifications, and instant checkout. Development cost dropped 68%. Mobile conversion increased 41%.
Before
3 codebases · 3 teams · 6-week release cycle · no SEO from native apps · $18k/mo maintenance
After
1 PWA codebase · 1 team · instant deploys · full SEO · $5.8k/mo maintenance
Engagement shape
A typical progressive web app development engagement. We build feature by feature — the PWA goes live early and improves continuously.
Two senior engineers on the project. Lighthouse baseline, offline strategy planning, push compatibility audit, caching architecture. A ranked, dollarized RFC.
App shell cached, manifest configured, service worker wired in, one production route live with offline support. Real Lighthouse scores on the deployed URL.
Push notifications, background sync, offline data, installability prompts. Each feature deployed and tested on real devices across browsers.
Lighthouse 100 in production. Push configured. Runbook handed to your team — or we stay on retainer.
Stack
Our default PWA development stack — picked for production, not demo scores.
Engagement
No hourly retainer that bills for "thinking time." Pick a lane that matches your stage; everything is fixed-quote or transparently rated.
A defined product, a fixed price, a senior-only team. From RFC to deployed PWA in 8–12 weeks.
$15k–$30k
FIXED SCOPE
Embedded engineers in your Slack, your Linear, your standups. Senior web engineers specialising in progressive web apps. Pause, resize, end with 30 days' notice.
$5k / eng / mo
PER ENGINEER
A long-term partner for organisations replacing native apps with PWAs or running both in parallel.
custom
PROCUREMENT-FRIENDLY
Founder-direct
Thirty minutes with the founder. We'll bring a senior PWA engineer, the relevant playbook, and a candid read on whether a progressive web app is the right call — or whether native or hybrid serves your product better.
