PWA Vs Hybrid App

I’m confused as to why one would use Ionic to create a Progressive Web App. They seem almost like competing technologies to me. Please tell me where I’m confused.

Ionic is for building hybrid apps that run in a browser window inside a native app. The advantages are you get access to all the devices hardware & OS resources, but the majority of your work is HTML, CSS & Javascript so it is reusable across platforms. The apps are distributed in app stores. The major disadvantage is there’s no good Web solution. (Perhaps someday Electron will be another supported platform.)

On the other hand PWAs run in browsers without the advantage of a native container - so they don’t have access to the device resources (unless there’s an HTML5 interface.) They are regular web sites and aren’t available in he App Stores. The main advantage is you get a high-performance app that runs everywhere including the desktop.

Ionic makes it possible to create native apps without having to learn Phone Gap. But what does it bring to the party when building a PWA?

In short, Ionic is mainly the missing UI layer for both of those solutions.

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If you already use Ionic: You don’t have to learn how to build a PWA by hand, you can do it the same way you built your Ionic app.
If you are new to Ionic: It is a nice way to build a PWA with all the UI components available.

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