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6 February 2026 · 5 min

Web app, mobile app or PWA for your MVP?

Web app, mobile app or PWA for your MVP? A practical decision guide for founders who don't want to ship the wrong thing twice.

The short answer

Web app for B2B and tools. PWA for consumer products that need an icon on the home screen. Native mobile only when you genuinely need camera, NFC, background location, or push notifications that survive force-quit.

Why web wins for B2B

Users live in browser tabs all day. No app store gates. No 30% Apple cut. You can ship updates hourly instead of waiting on review. Almost every B2B SaaS we build is web-only — nobody asks for the app.

When PWA is the right middle ground

Consumer-facing, used on the go, benefits from being one tap away. Installable, works offline, push notifications on Android (limited on iOS). Half the cost of a native app, 80% of the experience.

When you truly need native

Health and fitness tracking, ride-share, photography, AR. Anything that needs deep OS integration or has to feel platform-native. For everything else, native is a tax not a feature.

What we usually recommend

Build the web app first. Get to 1,000 users. Watch how they actually use it. Then — and only then — decide if a native shell adds enough to justify two more codebases.

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