Guides¶

The guides section is where the rest of this site comes together into decisions and projects. The reference sections explain one mechanism at a time (the manifest, the service worker lifecycle, caching, push); the guides answer the questions that cut across all of them: should you build a PWA at all, how do you retrofit one onto a site that already has users, how do search engines and analytics see it, what have other teams learned, and what must be true before you launch. Each guide is written for engineers who will act on it, with checklists, complete code and links into the deep-dive pages for every mechanism it relies on.

Guides in this section¶

How the guides differ from the reference sections¶

The site is organized in two layers. The reference sections (Fundamentals, Web App Manifest, Service Workers, Caching & Offline, Background & Engagement, Device & OS Integration and the rest) each document one area exhaustively: every member, event, option, default and browser difference. They are what you read when you need to know exactly how something behaves.

The guides sit on top. Each one starts from a goal ("decide," "migrate," "get indexed," "measure," "launch") and walks through the work in the order you'd do it, pulling in only the mechanisms that matter for that goal. Where a guide needs a mechanism, it summarizes the part that matters and links to the reference page rather than repeating it. That keeps each guide readable end to end, and it means the reference page stays the single source of truth when browsers change.

Learning paths¶

The three paths below give an order of reading for different starting points. Each step names what you should be able to do afterward, so you can skip steps you already know.

flowchart TD
    Q{"Where are you starting from?"}
    Q -- "New to PWAs" --> B["Beginner path"]
    Q -- "Shipping a production web app" --> E["Experienced developer path"]
    Q -- "Deciding for a team or product" --> T["Tech lead path"]
    B --> B1["What Is a PWA?"] --> B2["Tutorial: Your First PWA"] --> B3["Lifecycle and caching basics"]
    E --> E1["Migrating an Existing Site"] --> E2["Updating and pitfalls"] --> E3["Production Checklist"]
    T --> T1["When to Build a PWA"] --> T2["Platform Support and iOS"] --> T3["Case Studies"]

Beginner path: from zero to a working, installable PWA¶

You know HTML, CSS, JavaScript and HTTP, but you haven't built a PWA. This path gets you from concepts to a working app, then to the mechanisms you need to avoid the common mistakes.

1. What Is a PWA? Understand the definition in terms of capabilities rather than marketing: a website with a manifest, a service worker and progressive enhancement. After this step: you can explain what makes a site a PWA and what doesn't.
2. Core Building Blocks Learn how HTTPS, the manifest and the service worker fit together, and which APIs build on them. After this step: you know which file does what.
3. Tutorial: Your First PWA Build a complete small PWA from scratch: manifest, icons, service worker, offline page, install button. After this step: you have a working, installable app you can experiment with.
4. Installability Criteria Learn why a site is or isn't installable in each browser, and how Safari's rules differ from Chromium's. After this step: you can debug "why isn't my install button showing?"
5. Service Worker Lifecycle Install, waiting, activation and control. This is the page that prevents most beginner bugs. After this step: you can predict what happens when you change sw.js.
6. Caching Strategies Cache-first, network-first, stale-while-revalidate and when to use each. After this step: you can choose a strategy per request type and explain the trade-off.
7. Offline UX & Fallbacks Design what users see when the network fails. After this step: your app degrades gracefully instead of breaking.
8. Browser DevTools Inspect registrations, caches, the manifest and offline behavior. After this step: you can debug your own app without guessing.

When you're comfortable with these, continue with Workbox Fundamentals or the Vite PWA Plugin to let tooling generate the parts you now understand, and read the Pitfalls & Anti-Patterns page before you ship anything to real users.

Experienced developer path: adding PWA features to a production app¶

You maintain a production web app with real traffic, a CDN, authentication and a release process. Your priority is getting the benefits without an incident. This path is ordered by risk: low-risk changes first, then the mechanisms that can hurt you, then the capabilities.

1. Migrating an Existing Site The end-to-end plan: audit, manifest, a navigation-only first worker, incremental caching, auth rules, CDN configuration, feature-flagged rollout and a kill switch. After this step: you have a phased plan with exit criteria and a rollback for each phase.
2. HTTP Caching & Service Workers How the worker's caches, the browser's HTTP cache and your CDN interact, including how the worker script itself is cached. After this step: you can set headers for every path without surprises.
3. Updating Service Workers Update checks, activation patterns, update prompts, rollbacks and emergency procedures. After this step: you can ship worker changes safely and recover from a bad one.
4. Navigation Preload and Static Routing API Keep the worker off the critical path. After this step: your worker doesn't slow down navigations.
5. Pitfalls & Anti-Patterns The mistakes that cause stale apps, reload loops and broken sites. After this step: you can review a worker change for known failure modes.
6. Service Worker Security Scope, cache poisoning, CSP for workers and third-party scripts. After this step: your security review covers the worker.
7. SEO for PWAs and Analytics for PWAs Confirm that crawlers and your measurement still work after the migration. After this step: no silent regressions in traffic or data.
8. Capabilities, as your product needs them. Push Notifications, Web Share, File Handling, Install Prompts & Custom UI and the rest of Device & OS Integration. Check each against Platform Support before building.
9. Production Checklist The final gate before each major release. After this step: you've verified installability, offline behavior, update safety, security headers and cross-browser behavior.

If your app is a single-page app with significant client-side data, add Offline-First Data & Sync and IndexedDB after step 5. If your team uses Workbox, read Advanced Workbox alongside step 3.

Tech lead path: evaluating PWAs for a product or team¶

You're deciding whether and how your organization should invest in a PWA, and you need to defend the decision. This path focuses on capabilities, platform constraints, cost and evidence.

1. When to Build a PWA The decision procedure: the capability ladder, a requirements checklist mapped to browser support, the iOS evaluation worksheet, team skills, maintenance cost, hybrid options and scenario analyses. After this step: you can map your product's requirements to a recommendation.
2. PWA vs Native vs Hybrid A deep comparison of runtime architecture, security models, distribution, updates, background execution and performance. After this step: you can answer "why not native?" and "why not Capacitor or Electron?" with specifics.
3. Platform Support and iOS & iPadOS The feature matrix across engines, and the platform with the most rules. After this step: you know which features your largest user segments actually get.
4. Publishing to App Stores and Trusted Web Activity How PWAs reach Google Play, the Microsoft Store and, with a native wrapper, the App Store. After this step: you can plan distribution alongside the web.
5. Case Studies What other teams built and what they reported, with sources. After this step: you have attributed evidence rather than anecdotes.
6. Security & Privacy and Privacy & Storage Partitioning The security model, permission UX and storage rules your compliance team will ask about. After this step: you can brief security and legal reviewers.
7. Migrating an Existing Site Skim the phases, rollout plan and abort criteria. After this step: you can estimate the work and the operational commitments.
8. Production Checklist Use it as the definition of done for the project. After this step: the team knows what "launch-ready" means.

For performance-driven business cases, add Core Web Vitals and Measuring Performance: they explain how to measure a PWA's effect on real users, which is the evidence most stakeholders ask for.

Choosing where to start¶

If none of the paths fits exactly, pick the row that matches your situation:

Conventions used in the guides¶

The guides follow the same accuracy rules as the rest of the site, and a few conventions make them easier to act on:

• Support claims carry a date. Browser support changes with every release. Tables state the date their data was checked and link to MDN or caniuse for live data. When a guide says a feature is Chromium-only, it means it ships in Chrome, Edge and other Chromium-based browsers but not in Safari or Firefox.
• Numbers are attributed. Performance or business figures in case studies link to the public source that reported them, and are phrased as that source's claim.
• Code is complete. Service workers, registration scripts, server configuration and measurement snippets are full files or clearly marked excerpts, with error handling and comments explaining why each decision was made. They're meant to be adapted, not copied blindly: cache names, URL patterns and allowlists are specific to your site.
• Risk is explicit. Where a step can break a production site (caching HTML, activating workers immediately, clearing storage), the guide says so and gives the rollback.
• Guides link rather than repeat. If a paragraph summarizes a mechanism, the linked reference page has the full, spec-level treatment.

Further reading¶

On this site

• Fundamentals: the concepts every guide builds on
• What Is a PWA?
• Tutorial: Your First PWA
• Service Workers
• Platform Support
• Reference: FAQ and Glossary
• Resources & Specifications

External references

• MDN: Progressive web apps
• web.dev: Learn PWA
• Web Application Manifest specification (W3C)
• Service Workers specification (W3C)