App or website?
Do you actually need an app?
Most businesses that ask for a mobile app do not need one. If your users will open it less than once a week, do not need it to work offline, and do not need the camera, GPS or push notifications, a mobile web app does the same job for roughly half the cost, with no app store approval and updates that go live the same day. The test is not how modern an app feels - it is whether anyone will install it and keep it installed.
The three questions that decide it
- How often will someone open it? Daily or near-daily use earns a home screen icon. Monthly use does not, and the app gets deleted at the next storage prompt.
- Does it need the phone itself? Camera, GPS, offline working and push notifications are real reasons to build native. Wanting to be 'on the App Store' is not.
- Who is being asked to install it? Your own staff will install what you tell them to. Customers will not, and every install step loses a share of them.
What you give up by going native
- Every release waits for store review, so an urgent fix is not always an urgent fix.
- You maintain two codebases, or accept a cross-platform compromise on both.
- You have to persuade someone to install software before they get any value, which is the hardest ask in the whole funnel.
When an app is genuinely the right answer
- Field staff working where there is no signal and data must sync later.
- Anything that needs to interrupt someone usefully - a driver, an on-call engineer, a delivery window.
- Tools used many times a day, where shaving seconds off each use pays for the build.
Common questions
- Can a web app be on the home screen?
- Yes. A progressive web app installs to the home screen, opens without a browser bar and can work offline, with no store approval. It covers a large share of what people imagine when they ask for an app.
- Will a web app feel slower?
- Not for typical business software. The difference shows up in heavy graphics and constant hardware access, which most business tools never touch.