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Hypernode and PWA Hosting
Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are a hot item and are considered the future of web development. Also Magento believes that PWA’s are the future of the mobile web. Good to know: although Hypernode is managed hosting, it offers developers the freedom to change the NGINX configuration in order to make Hypernode fully compatible with Magento Progressive Web Apps.
Table of Contents
The Importance of Mobile Web
Mobile web involves accessing websites via smartphones and tablets. Research company Forrester has predicted mobile commerce continues to grow and will contribute to half of overall retail sales growth by 2022. It is not hard to imagine a webshop optimised for the mobile web will lead to more profit.
The Challenges for Webshops
More and more online shoppers will use their tablet or mobile phone to make purchases, but most websites are not responsive enough to serve information in the best way possible, regardless of the device used. That is where mobile apps come into play. Apps are very versatile. They can send notifications, they can be used offline etc.
Sure you can develop mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows, besides your ‘normal’ webshop, but developing and maintaining both a website and mobile apps is not ideal and has it’s limitations.
How cool would it be to if you would only need to develop and maintain 1 web application which ensures a great user experience regardless of the device used? It is reality now with Progressive Web Apps.
Progressive Web Apps and it’s Advantages
PWA’s are highly responsive. They auto-adjust the layout according to the device. So, whether it is a mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop, PWA’s will fit any device.
PWA’s offer a much more reliable experience in case of a bad internet connection. Service workers are utilized to provide offline support.
A PWA is always served via HTTPS, hence it is secure.
A PWA is made up of service workers, which can run in the background. To avoid tampering with service workers PWA requires it to be hosted over HTTPS. It offers a faster user experience because scrolling is responsive and loading is fast. It also makes the application feel like it belongs on the device and not inside a tab in a browser. For example, the application runs in full screen mode, enables push notifications, etc.
Hypernode and PWA
Hypernode is PWA ready. Although Hypernode is managed hosting, our customers have the freedom to change the NGINX configuration in order to make Hypernode fully compatible with Magento Progressive Web Apps. Let’s Encrypt can be used to set up a secure connection.
We have noticed a few curious customers are already testing Magento Progressive Web Applications. Would you like to try it as well? Please share your successes and do not hesitate to involve us when you run into challenges!