On the other hand, Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are mobile Apps which provide the looks of a general website. Currently, these are only used by big enterprise level websites and companies. PWAs can be used to fill the vast void spaces created with AMP results, if you’re seeking to reduce your webpages load time. PWAs helps users to re-visit your website.
Basically, PWAs has 3 features which make it differ from AMPs-
First, they’re fast, which AMP is also.
Second, they’re reliable in providing all information to the user, which AMP is not because it removes many scripts which you’ve added on your website to improve conversion rate.
Third, they provide a high engagement rate, which AMP for sure doesn’t provide.
Here, we’re not declaring that PWA is good to use over AMP because these are just 3 advantages of PWA over AMP and AMP has also some benefits over PWA. To know what is the difference between AMP and PWA read below.
Difference between AMP and PWA
By using AMP and PWA, you can say goodbye to the high page load time and long waiting duration. You would show patience for your desktop as a site is loaded, but, on a mobile, 3 seconds seems like the longest time. Beyond, 3 seconds, you refuse to wait, close the tab and move on to your next URL or search. This behaviour accounts for 53% bounce rate on a mobile.
That’s where the features of these two applications/technologies, i.e. AMP and PWA, comes into play. They safeguard the mobile searches as well as the searchers. But, first, here’s a brief explanation for both the Google Features.
What is AMP?
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is the latest Google feature developed on opensource mediums and it is especially developed to improve page-loading performance. It allows for an outstandingly fast browsing experience on mobile.
AMP is simple as it contains 10 times less data, which is useless for the reader, than a usual website or app. It thus helps to get the informative content in front of users in the fastest possible time. It’s like you place your demand and the solution will be provided to you in a jiffy.
Benefits of AMP:
Pages are easily cached and instantly loaded.
It supports all existing formats of ads.
It enhances and deepens engagement factor.
The load time of a page reduces to less than 1 second, making the website 4 times faster.
Primarily it was used for news articles and now it has expanded to other verticals of content.
Publishers of the website have full control over the business design and visual design.
What is PWA?
Progressive Web Apps (PWA) is the latest Google feature developed for the home screens of smartphones with modern web technologies such as push notifications, offline web pages, and fast load timings. These are simple web pages with modern browsers’ features.
It has been noticed that if users arrive from home screen icon of a PWA, the conversion rate is more than 70%. Not only does it load pages faster, it also has 3 times lower data usage. Users who visits the website 2 times or more within 2 weeks are suggested the option ‘add to home screen’. They just need one tap to add to home screen and one tap to open it.
Benefits of PWA:
It loads the pages faster.
It enhances the conversion rate.
Users can scroll 60 frames in one second.
It opens on full screen without any URL bar.
It engages the users with push notifications.
It allows smooth animations and navigations.
Users access website via Home screen icon on device.
It permits to work even on weak or no internet connections.
In it, the webpages are stored in cache with Application Shell and, thus, loads them instantly in less than 5 sec on repeat visits/re-visits.
Which is Better AMP or PWA?
It is important to know the difference between AMP and PWA, but you need to understand both go hand-to- hand. If you’re an “HTTPS” website owner, then you need the support of both the technologies to serve your visitors better.
With AMP, users get access to content quickly while PWA improves users experience and keeps them engaged. If we want to explain AMP and PWA in simpler terms, AMP is the waiter responsible for serving the food quickly while PWA is the cook preparing dishes that look appealing and taste delicious. These are two new facilities that are added to the website development.
The initial review may tell you that Progressive Web Apps is better than Accelerated Mobile Pages, but you should know that AMP cannot be ignored. This is because, there are hundreds of websites that users are visiting each day and they cannot keep apps of each one of them on their mobile phones. But, they need websites to load faster. And, that’s where the role of AMP comes into play. Almost 92% of users give up on a site if they find signing up difficult or lengthy. One tap sign in or auto sign in is possible with Credential Manager API and one tap check out is possible with Web Payments API.
PWA has become a necessity today. Standard progressive enhancement techniques will help PWAs to work across all modern browsers. So, a website will not have to pay for each browser and will see a huge improvement is terms of traffic, lead and conversion. PWA takes the support of https, which is a secure connection between site and users. Security is highly essential as it builds trust on the website, gives notifications if anyone has tampered with the pages and gives the leverage to hide the browsing behaviour. It even sends notifications when page is closed or the internet is not working. It also secures the website from unwanted content, unwanted ads and viruses. Many new technologies are supported in https only. Research shows users spend 74% more time on PWAs and it helps to get 82% conversion rate in iOS and 104% in rest of the browsers. With the help of push notifications feature, users can be notified with specific information on time to time basis.
Washington Post – an Ideal example of both AMP and PWA Adoption
Let’s take the example of Washington Post- a renowned news agency to see how they have improved their website and upgraded their user-experience with AMP and PWA combination. Initially when they transformed their website into a responsive mobile site, their speed was 3500 ms. They then adopted AMP mechanism to reduce the page load time to 1200 ms and it was further reduced to 400 ms with AMP CDN technology. The result, a huge difference in searches, which was 35% before AMP has reached a 63% after AMP adoption. As a news delivery organization relying on third-party content submission, they then shifted to Washington Post PWA and Social Workers to reduce the site burden. With the PWA adoption their pages were updated as fast as possible allowing users to surf the website without any interruption.
AMP to PWA flow is a gradual procedure, where websites first accept the AMP technology and then shift to PWA. Like, Washington Post article first came up in AMP carousel before registering in Service Worker. They started incorporating more navigation facilities in PWA for better user- experience with an aim to increasing users who accept this flow. So, they simplified the process by providing instant loading of pages on Washington Post domain. Once a user becomes a frequent visitor, they promptly show ‘add to home screen’ option. Once a user accepts it, it becomes a one tap experience.