Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) offer several benefits that developers can leverage to enhance the experience for site visitors.
Benefits of PWAs
- Offline Mode: Visitors can revisit sites they’ve visited before. This is because PWAs store a version of the site in the user’s browser as an offline app. While similar to caching, it doesn’t just include the pages the user has visited—in many cases, it includes the entire site.
- App-Like Experience: PWAs are responsive and provide an experience more akin to a native app than browsing a website page by page.
- Improved Performance: In addition to the app-like experience and offline mode, repeat visitors can access and browse the site more quickly. However, the first visit may take some time because all the files required for the PWA experience must be loaded.
- Push Notifications: PWAs offer many capabilities, and push notifications are just one of them. Please note that while these features are available, they require configuration. Whether you’re using other WordPress plugins or creating custom functions, it’s all possible—but configuration is required.
- HTTP/2: Progressive Web Apps help Shifter users take greater advantage of the HTTP/2 capabilities we provide. This feature eliminates “render-blocking” and allows site visitors to download assets from the site all at once. There’s also no need to inline large CSS files. With HTTP/2 and PWA, the browser won’t be blocked from downloading the rest of the site.
FAQs About Shifter + PWA + WordPress
- Is PWA added or enabled automatically? No. You must opt in by installing the PWA WordPress plugin created by XWP.
- Why this specific WordPress plugin and not another one?
This plugin is the most likely candidate for integration into WordPress core.
For setup instructions, please refer to the support document “How to Create a Progressive Web App on Shifter with WordPress.”