Since 2015, the web community has been buzzing around progressive web applications and PWA programming. But what is the progressive web apps meaning? PWA is basically a suite of technologies enabling you to install a website on a device as an application. This implies that you are free to create a site without also building iOS and Android apps. PWAs look and feel like native apps while operating inside regular browsers, thanks in part to the meticulous setup of the HTML file and the configuration file.
It became easier to convert any website into a PWA with the advent of progressive frameworks such as React, Vue.js, Angular.js, and others. Today, using these advanced web technologies is one of the most promising ways to invest in business growth.
We've created this guide to show you what these "semi-native apps" look like and how beneficial they may be for a business. If you are still in two minds about whether to build a progressive app or put it aside, this piece can help you make a decision. Browse these 24 PWA examples that may inspire you to get your own mini-storage progressive web app.
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25 Examples of Outstanding PWAs
A PWA is a web app available to users from any browser. Examples of such web apps range from Google Sheets to online stores. While older browsers like Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows might have limitations, modern PWAs offer a consistent experience across devices, including iPad web apps, smartphones, and PCs.
Our "Hall of Fame" serves as a PWA directory containing incredible progressive web app examples of all kinds. We've already written about the stand-out . Now it's time to delve into other spheres to convince you that the progressive web apps can be used anywhere.
1. Danish Kitchenware Brand
This is one of Onilab’s long-term clients. Similar to many other online businesses launched over five years ago, the of tea and coffee makers struggled with low mobile conversion rates. The figures weren’t up to scratch, twice lower than desktop ones. Moreover, the store couldn’t handle the increasing traffic from smartphone users.
Rebuilding the store as a PWA was a fundamental change. Our team also redesigned the UX/UI to make the buying experience a breeze across all devices. The mobile-first approach was at the core of our strategy.
We introduced a tab bar with the main controls for easy smartphone navigation. To keep prices and CTAs always in view, we added sticky bars to the product, cart, and checkout pages. The final touch was ditching accordions for a pop-up logic when opening category filters, product descriptions, checkout fields, and service messages.
Through PWA implementation, the kitchenware brand saw drastic changes in its crucial metrics. Here are the numbers:
- mobile conversions went up by 50%;
- bounce rates on mobile declined by 20%;
- add-to-cart rate rose by 30%.
2. Tinder
Speaking about the best examples of progressive web apps, we couldn't but mention . With over 75 M monthly users, the dating app turned to PWA (Tinder Online) to improve user engagement and web experience.
As the Tinder app is massive (about 48 Mb on Android), not everyone is ready to dedicate so much smartphone memory to one app and install it at once. Creating Tinder Online helped these users try the dating app without fully committing to the platform.
The web app replicated the native experience, but at the same time, the PWA doesn’t push users to download it. The Tinder team employed proven such as code-splitting, lazy loading, and service workers to precache all their route level bundles and make the site super fast. What was the result?
- Decrease in load times from 11.9 sec to 4.6 sec due to the small size of the progressive web app;
- Users edit profiles more on the web than on their native apps.
3. MakeMyTrip
With eight million visits per month, is one of India's most well-known online travel agencies. It helps travelers find and book tour packages, airline tickets, and hotel rooms in a variety of locations and countries.
The decision to build a PWA was motivated by the need to tackle high acquisition costs and bounce rates. The problem was that many of their potential clients used outdated, data-constrained smartphones with poor connectivity. A PWA launch resulted in a swift, reliable, and high-quality mobile web experience. The outcomes were the following:
- 3x increase in conversion rate;
- a 38% reduction in page load time;
- 160% more shopping sessions.
4. Yummly
is one of the best progressive web app examples in the food industry. It is a great cooking platform that customizes the experience to your tastes, diet, cooking skill level, etc. The service also offers plenty of functionality aimed at helping to plan a meal and even shop for ingredients.
Crafting a PWA helped Yummly re-engage users with push notifications and improve overall customer satisfaction due to smooth and app-like UX. Even though this progressive application showcases great results, Yummly still urges users to download their native app. Like many other PWA examples, this one can be a middle ground for the users who aren't ready for the native application yet.
5. Flipboard
is one of the most well-known social magazines in the world. It enables users to keep up with those categories of news that are significant to them. Based on the user's interests, the website compiles a feed of stories from all over the world. Flipboard users can subscribe to their preferred sources and save news, images, and videos to their magazines for later reading or sharing.
The Flipboard PWA uses as little data as possible to provide a smooth browsing experience. It used to be a native mobile app that was only accessible on mobile devices, but today it offers both a native application and a PWA, balancing its user preference risks and making it available for desktop users as well. PWA launch had the following results:
- Flipboard became the most popular local news source in the United States and Canada;
- In 2022, there were 28 million personal news boards, compared to 11,000 in 2018.
To replicate this exceptional shopping experience for your store, consider our Magento, SFCC, or .
6. Uber
has its legitimate place in our list of best PWA examples from various industries. The Uber progressive web app appeared on the market in 2017 and was redesigned and rebuilt in 2019. But what was the reason for the switch? Generally, it became essential to make the service accessible to everyone, not just those with the latest smartphones. Leveraging the methodology helps them reach a wider audience, including users with slow Internet connection.
In 2019, Uber redesigned and rebuilt its web-based user interface at from the ground up. They considered users' surveys and previous experience to make the flow more user-friendly, blazingly fast, and engaging. They employed the Fusion.js framework developed by the Uber dev team for this particular PWA (now available for everyone as an open-source project). With Fusion.js, Uber could focus on perceived performance.
Besides, they began to cache resources by applying service workers so that returning visitors could get a native app-like experience even on slow networks. The results were the following:
- TTFB improved from 1.5 sec to 1.26 sec due to the Fusion.js implementation;
- It takes only 3 seconds to load, even on a 2G connection.
7. Pinterest
2017 was a prosperous year for PWA implementations. Even , a service that always relied on its native app, decided to join the hype and release a brand-new progressive web app. And not without a good reason.
After analyzing mobile users' behavior, the Pinterest team realized that the poor web experience converted up to 1% of users. Thus, they needed to look for solutions to improve conversion. Over three months, Pinterest restructured its mobile experience using Webpack, Redux, and React.js.
They paid attention to aspects such as overall performance and image optimization. As such, the Pinterest team used Progressive JPEG and lazy loading to make the images load faster (we've mentioned these and other techniques in our guide on ). This rebuild led to some positive improvements in core business KPIs:
- 40% increase in time spent on the progressive app compared to the mobile website;
- 60% raise in core user engagement;
- 44% higher ad revenue;
- The Pinterest PWA requires only 150 KB of data storage, making it easier for users to engage with the site.
8. Telegram Web
One more PWA example we can't miss is . It is a rapidly expanding cloud-based platform for communication. The primary factors that make Telegram stand out are security and speed. All the messages are encrypted in the cloud, and pictures, as well as music and videos, can be uploaded and sent very quickly.
The Telegram Progressive Web App complies with every crucial PWA criterion, including HTTPS, Manifest, service workers, and offline mode.
The company wanted to provide customers with more ways to access their messages across all platforms while still keeping all the features that make Telegram so popular. And PWA developed into a fantastic addition to the package. Here are some of the PWA building results:
- 175% more users;
- 50% greater retention rates;
- 50% more sessions per user.
9. 2048
If you haven't played it yourself, you must have at least heard about ! It’s one of the PWA games that quickly obtained popularity and hype. It’s simple to use and implement, being a notable Angular PWA example. Nevertheless, 2048 is quite addictive. The point of this application game is to join digit blocks to form the sum of 2048 in the total score. The web app is easily accessible, lightweight, and very plain; that's what makes it so great. Also available in downloadable native format, the game is equally nice in its PWA version.
10. Housing.com
certainly should be among the best examples of progressive web apps. It is a real estate service based in Mumbai. The platform does its best to simplify searching for a place to live, whether for rent or purchase, in over 35 major Indian cities.
Initially, the Housing.com team had to overcome the page load challenge as users were very impatient about slow pages. Moreover, the company had to consider the question of costly internet, which meant people wouldn't download the native app as often as the team would expect. A PWA enabled visitors to use the platform in an offline mode right from browsers.
Among the significant objectives they wished to reach was delivering an impeccable web experience. And according to the PageSpeed Insights scores that the website obtained, it has an excellent 100 out of 100 mobile-friendliness score. What did they manage to achieve?
- 38% increase in conversions;
- 40% lower bounce rate;
- 10% longer average session;
- 30% increase in page load times.
11. Spotify PWA
, a music streaming service providing millions of songs and podcasts, is one of the most fantastic examples of PWA websites. Like a native app, the Spotify PWA delivers an outstanding user experience to mobile and desktop users. Among the things that make it stand out are the brushed-up UI and refined design, providing a top-grade experience.
The lightning-fast progressive web app has many great features, for instance, those that deal with customization (easy-to-craft playlists, changeable background colors, great pitches, and selections based on the user's tastes). What outcomes did a PWA launch have?
- The free-to-paid conversion went from 26.6% to 46%;
- 30% more monthly active users;
- 40% more average listening hours per month.
12. Treebo
is one of the most well-known hotel booking websites in India. It was founded in 2014 as a budget hotel aggregator catering to users short on money. They recently switched to a new PWA as their default mobile experience, initially using and eventually switching to Preact in production.
The PWA excels in its , offering a swift and comprehensive experience that ensures users can effortlessly find and select the ideal room for their stay. To achieve such swift performance in Magento-based PWAs, it's essential to use tools like a , which can significantly improve loading times and overall user experience. The integration of filters, search functionality, and tags is meticulously crafted to streamline the booking process. Treebo is an excellent example of how a progressive web app can increase the conversion rate by four times by being fast and user-friendly. PWA launch helped the company achieve the following:
- 70% improvement in time to first paint (compared to their old mobile version powered by a monolithic Django setup);
- 31% improvement in time-to-interactive.
13. OLA Cabs
is the top taxi aggregator in India with a tireless ambition to increase mobility for a billion Indians. The organization has a network of over 600K driver-partners covering over 100 Indian cities.
Cellular connectivity and internet speed are common issues in Indian cities. Hence, it was crucial to provide a solution with low data consumption.
Ola's mobile website was created as a Progressive Web App (PWA). It requires only 200KB of data, which is 300X less than for the Android app and 500X less than for OLA's iOS app. Recurring visits only consume 10KB. On 2G and 3G networks, this little data consumption equates to an initial visit time of 3.4 seconds, with recurring visits taking less than a second.
14. Kopa (PadPiper)
The housing service (former PadPiper) provides grounds for connecting people searching for roommates. With the growth of the site, thanks to the PWA, Kopa's target audience expanded from just college students to those who graduated recently, digital nomads, and even people with professions that require traveling or relocation.
The Kopa PWA is user-friendly and quick. Apart from that, browsing properties on the site are super intuitive, and all the necessary data on the location, host, house rules, etc., are readily available. With such a great PWA, it's no surprise that Kopa's audience is continuously growing.
15. Google Maps Go PWA
The progressive web app rush didn't shy away from Google. Their outstanding service appeared in a lightweight PWA version a couple of years ago. Before that, the main issue with maps was that they took way too long to load and were often back-peddled due to the large data volumes.
To overcome this challenge, they rolled out a PWA that would cope with the limited processing power and random access memory (typical case with mobile devices) on the web version.
16. Soundslice
is the most cutting-edge music software for teaching and learning. For self-taught musicians, the PWA-based software's advanced music player makes the process of learning a piece of music more straightforward and effective.
Users of the Soundslice player may read and hear a piece of music on any device while learning how to play it. Great speed is a must for this kind of application, and PWA meets the demands.
Additionally, music teachers may use the program to design engaging music classes. Soundslice also features a store where courses and transcriptions may be purchased.
17. Forbes
Another PWA example on our list is . Back in 2017, they decided to transform their entire mobile web experience and rework their site’s look and feel. The main focus was on the content's visual appeal, along with fast page load times and superb navigation solutions.
The PWA showed impeccable results right after the launch, with a visible 50% increase in user engagement. Furthermore, Android users can enjoy enhanced capabilities such as offline functionality and push notifications.
18. Weather Channel
website provides users with daily weather forecasts. Although the platform has a native app, 50% of its audience isn’t mobile app users. Half of it accesses Weather Channel through its mobile website. The organization conducted a survey and found that many consumers could not retrieve weather information because of a weak connection.
For a weather prediction service, the push notification capabilities in the web version are critical since they keep users informed of impending weather conditions. To address this, the Weather Channel launched a project that started as an experiment to integrate browser push notifications into its mobile web solution and advanced to a full-fledged PWA implementation.
The PWA had notable outcomes, such as receiving more than half a million opt-ins for push notifications in the first three months and an 80% boost in loading speed, which has naturally decreased the bounce rate.
19. MishiPay
is a mobile self-checkout solution for physical establishments. Customers may pick up an item, scan the barcode, pay with their phone using MishiPay, and then exit the store with their purchase.
The technology was first released as platform-specific iOS and Android applications. However, despite the benefit of the technology, only few people utilized it due to the installation complexity. So the team decided to create a PWA.
Compared to native applications, the PWA has shown a significant increase in user acceptance, according to the MishiPay team. As a result, the number of transactions grew ten times.
20. Book My Show
An Indian ticket provider, , offers movies and concert tickets, reviews, teasers, etc. The majority of transactions on the service take place on mobile. However, the company suffered from high bounce rates for a while due to the poor load speed of its mobile website. Another problem was the native app's high data and memory requirements.
BookMyShow built a PWA to provide its users with the finest mobile web experience possible, knowing that speed and efficiency are essential to a positive ticket-buying experience. For existing clients, a PWA would offer a fast, seamless booking experience to maximize speed and eliminate data constraints.
BookMyShow had the chance to transition away from its PHP backend stack concurrently by switching to a PWA. They incorporated cutting-edge techniques and created a robust, technically sophisticated web app that offers quick, dependable, and captivating experiences identical to those of the native app. The results were the following:
- An 80% boost in conversions;
- A 4-second initial load time;
- The PWA's size is 140 KB, 54 times less than the Android app and 180 times less than the iOS app.
21. OnTheMarket
Most people who browse real estate deals online are not experienced users and need a lot of hand-holding to do things. They quickly get frustrated if a site looks strange or has abstruse navigation. That's why we decided to highlight , one of the WordPress web app examples.
The development team put a lot of effort into the elements that matter most: the map, the property features, and the wish list function. Also, note the contact buttons; they are easy to see and reach.
The OnTheMarket team knows its customers want to look through many properties before choosing. The Save feature helps users keep track of exciting offers. Furthermore, real estate clients need a convenient way to compare and return to different requests during their search. As a result, OnTheMarket focused on key usability metrics and made the site fast, reliable, and easy to use.
22. Ride
Since bikes are a thing almost anywhere in the world, sharing services are always in demand. is a bike-sharing app that provides real-time details on the sharing scheme in your city. It displays the number of available bikes, helps find the stations where you can take or leave a bike, and even gives the precise distance to a specific bike location.
You can pan and scroll the map view to locate stations and press any of them to see the most recent data. Being a PWA, Ride remains lightweight, fast, and intuitive.
23. Goibibo
is India's top website for travel bookings. The team created both a PWA and a native app, yet observed considerable drop-offs during the payment step of the PWA in comparison to their iOS/Android applications.
Apart from that, nearly 20% of their consumers were beginning a session on the web and turning to the app. This reaffirmed their conviction that a significant number of consumers would go untapped without a coordinated PWA and iOS/Android app approach.
At that point, they decided to invest in their PWA to provide native app-like UX. The team utilized the Contact Picker API to let PWA users fill out forms for other people, the WebOTP (One-Time Password) API to make signing in less complex, and the Web exchange API to make it simpler to swap links, text, or files concerning hotel information, transportation options, and other topics.
In addition, Goibibo retargeted bounced users with relevant information like travel ticket alerts and other tailored content via web push notifications. These PWA iterations managed to increase conversion rates by 60%.
24. River North Hotel
Hospitality has become much trickier since Airbnb and other aggregators disrupted it. Desperate to regain their ground from the new industry giants, hotels seek ways to succeed in the new market landscape. And Best Western River North Hotel is no exception. Even though their old website worked relatively well, they understood there’s room for improvement.
The hotel's team focused on being more user-friendly, fast, and engaging to gain the upper hand. That's why in 2018, decided to go the PWA way. And they did it well.
The site is fast, convenient, and easy to navigate. The photos are loaded almost instantly. The PWA helped River North Hotel achieve the following results:
- a 300% increase in revenue;
- a 500% increase in room nights (compared to the old website);
- six times more customers.
25. Trivago
is one of the world's leading hotel search engines. Since more Trivago users access the service through a mobile device than on a desktop, they need a solution to respond to the challenge. So, they opted for a progressive app.
- more than 500,000 people added the app to their home screens;
- the number of clicks to hotels rose to 94%
- the re-engagement rate increased by 150% (thanks to push notifications);
- 97% increase in CTR.
Do these PWA success stories inspire you? If you’re eager to create a similarly fast and fluid user experience, consider our .
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Summary
PWAs are extremely popular across a range of online business sectors and are even being considered as a potential replacement for native applications in the future. Industries benefiting from PWAs range from eCommerce and retail to finance and healthcare. You may even find insurance progressive web apps on the web. These applications are quick, simple to use, offer a fantastic user experience, and increase mobile conversions.
Since PWA is still a relatively new solution, developers naturally need to overcome a few problems and optimize progressive web apps to load fast, rank well, and look good. This includes:
- effective management and integration of data sources and features like a password manager;
- enhancing caching mechanisms;
- minimizing server requests;
- optimizing asset delivery, among other things.
In some cases, companies have initially embraced this technology but dropped progressive web app support in favor of other apps and approaches, such as hybrid apps, due to these challenges. Anyway, PWA remains one of the most impactful tools for digital business growth in 2023.
With more and more new dev tools (PWA Drupal Module, SuperPWA, Magento PWA Studio) and Angular service worker support appearing, converting sites into an installable web app became much more straightforward. These tools not only facilitate the conversion process but also empower businesses to create custom applications tailored to their unique needs. We hope that these examples of top webapps will inspire you to build your own sample web application. Turn to our if you want to get a list of web application projects we’ve completed or need assistance throughout the process.
