Choose a PWA when you want to run fast and cheaply on all devices without an app store, with one codebase. Choose native when you need heavy performance, deep hardware integration, or a prominent place in the app store. A PWA often costs a fraction of a native app: web development from a few thousand euros versus €18,000 to €70,000 for native. For most B2B tools, a PWA is the smart start.
Most companies that ask us for "an app" do not need a native app. They need a tool that works on every phone, loads fast, and does not throw up the barrier of an app store download. That is a Progressive Web App. But not always, and misjudging the difference costs you tens of thousands of euros or a product that cannot do what it must. Here is the honest trade-off without the sales pitch.
A PWA is a website that behaves like an app: installable on the home screen with its own icon, works offline via a service worker, and can send push notifications. One codebase for iOS, Android, and desktop at the same time. No app store, so no 15 to 30 percent commission on every transaction, and no approval process that takes days for every update.
What a PWA does excellently:
Where a PWA hits limits: heavy graphic rendering, advanced camera or bluetooth features, and background tasks that the operating system manages tightly to save battery. On iOS, push notifications and background sync are more limited than on Android, although that gap has narrowed considerably in recent years now that Apple supports PWA notifications. For most business applications you never reach those limits.
Native apps run directly on the operating system and use all the hardware to its fullest. Choose native when you:
The price matches. A native app at NedDev sits in the range of €18,000 to €70,000, often with two codebases or a cross-platform framework that has its own trade-offs. A PWA as part of a web project is a fraction of that, because you reuse the same front-end stack you need for the website anyway. You do not pay twice for the same functionality.
The stubborn story that PWAs are slow has not been true for years. With Next.js 16, React 19, and edge caching on Cloudflare, a well-built PWA loads on modern phones almost as smoothly as native for the vast majority of tasks. The real difference only shows up with heavy, continuous processing such as real-time 3D. For showing data, filling in forms, and running through workflows, the difference is not noticeable to the user. A tool like FlexUren runs on exactly these techniques: fast, installable, and without the app store barrier.
Maintenance is where the PWA truly wins financially, and that is a cost people underestimate because it comes after launch. One codebase means fixing a bug once, updating once, and no waiting for an app store review on an urgent fix. With a native iOS plus Android app you maintain two platforms, each with its own release cycle, its own test devices, and its own strange behaviors. That doubles your ongoing costs year after year.
Many quote comparisons look only at build costs and thereby miss the biggest part of the picture. The real question is what an app costs you over three to five years. A native app requires periodic work to keep up with new iOS and Android versions, which change things every year that can break your app. Ignore that maintenance and your app crashes on the next major OS update while your reviews drain away. A PWA follows the browser, which updates itself, which makes your maintenance burden much lower.
An honest trade-off therefore includes three costs: the one-time build, the annual maintenance, and the distribution costs such as app store commission. For a transaction-driven product, that 15 to 30 percent commission can over time cost more than the entire build budget. For an internal B2B tool, distribution barely weighs in. Run the numbers for your specific case before you choose.
Start as a PWA, unless you have a concrete, hard reason to go native. Many successful products start as a web app and only build a native version when scale or a specific hardware requirement genuinely calls for it. You lose nothing along the way: the web code stays the base and can live on inside a native wrapper. The reverse route, building native and later discovering that a web app would have been enough, is far more expensive and costs you months. A sensible first step is making a list of the features you absolutely need and honestly checking off which of them truly require native hardware. In nine out of ten cases that list turns out shorter than expected and a PWA can handle everything. Take a look at our app development service or let us determine in a conversation what fits your use case. We are honest about it: sometimes native is the right answer, often it is not.
In the Google Play Store a PWA can be placed relatively easily via a wrapper. Apple is stricter, but there too a PWA can run via a wrapper or as an installed web app on the home screen. For many B2B tools the app store is not needed at all, which is actually an advantage: no commission and no review process.
Yes, often a fraction. A PWA reuses your existing web stack and is one codebase for all platforms. Native requires specialized development and sometimes two codebases, with prices between 18,000 and 70,000 euros. Maintenance of a PWA is also lower because you only have to update once.
Yes, via a service worker a PWA can show previously loaded content and perform certain actions without a network. For full offline functionality with heavy background sync there are limits, especially on iOS. For most tools offline-light is enough: the last loaded data stays available if the connection drops.