Do you need a mobile app, or will a web app do?

What a web app does well

• It opens from a link. No download, no store, no account with Apple or Google.
• It is one product for every device, updated for everyone the moment you release.
• It can be found through search engines.
• It is quicker and cheaper to build and to change.

Modern web apps also do more than they used to. They can be added to the home screen, cope with poor connections and, once installed that way, send notifications on current phones. For booking, ordering, dashboards, account management and most business tools, this is enough.

What only an app gives you

• Full access to the device: the camera for scanning, location in the background, Bluetooth, biometrics, health and payment features.
• Dependable offline use, with data stored on the phone and synchronised later.
• A place on the home screen, and with it the habit of daily use.
• Notifications that work the same way on every phone.
• The smoothness people expect from something they use many times a day.

If your product depends on any of these, a web app will feel like a compromise, and users will notice.

What an app costs you

Beyond the build, an app brings obligations. Each release goes through store review. The stores have rules about content, payments and privacy, and they change. Apple and Google release a new operating system every year, and apps need updating to keep working well.

None of this is a reason not to build one. It is a reason to be sure the app is needed before taking on the upkeep.

A short test

Answer these about your own product.

• Will people use it several times a week, or a few times a year?
• Does it need the camera, location, Bluetooth or other device features beyond the basics?
• Must it work with no connection?
• Do your customers expect to find you in the app stores?
• Is being found through search important to you?

Frequent use, device features and offline work point to an app. Occasional use and a need to be found through search point to the web.

Starting on the web, adding an app later

For a new product, the web is often the better first step. It reaches users soonest, it is cheapest to change while you are still learning, and it tells you which features people really use.

If the server side is built properly, with a clean API, an app can be added later and share everything behind it. The app then gets built for an audience that already exists, around behaviour you have already seen, which is a much safer investment than building both at once on a guess.