When customers always want to have a smooth and convenient experience during the time they are surfing on the internet, PWA is one of the perfect technologies. So which are the PWA pros and cons? The name of which PWA solutions is suitable for your business to catch up with the dynamic technological world? Scroll down to find out the answers in our freebie.
Introduction
Table of Contents
Progressive Web App (PWA) has demonstrated its influence in the eCommerce market by offering superior functionalities compared to responsive web pages or native applications. Taking advantage of this trend, numerous online businesses have transformed their websites into PWA storefronts in different ways.
To have a big picture on why PWA is the future for eCommerce websites, below is the comparison table between PWA vs Native apps vs Responsive websites:
Check out this post to find out Top noticeable PWA statistics you should not miss!
As the PWA advantages are undeniable, technology providers have surged to develop their solutions to serve the exponentially growing needs of merchants. As a result, we now have three hottest names for their excellent PWA solutions and their application for Magento websites: PWA Studio, Vue Storefront, and Scandi PWA.
- The Magento PWA Studio is a set of developer tools and libraries that enable you to develop, implement, and maintain a PWA storefront on top of a Magento 2 backend. It is ready-to-use tools to create a build system and framework, which adheres to the Magento principle of extensibility.
- Vue Storefront is a stand-alone frontend solution written on top of the Vue.js framework that is used to program eCommerce PWA projects. Vue Storefront may be used to develop a PWA interface for Magento (Vue Storefront with Magento 2), Spotify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and other platforms because it operates independently and does not rely on any backend platform.
- ScandiPWA is the first Open Source PWA theme for Magento that has the largest amount of Magento features and constantly updates with new versions. It allows us to build websites on top of it as merchants don’t have to download any GIT source code or modify source code. The migration process is less complex thanks to the features supported and the absence of middleware.
Even though these solutions are ready-made themes, they still encounter some extended drawbacks. It is hard to have a one-size-fits-all solution for all merchants in the eCommerce world. Therefore, we have come up with an in-depth comparison of PWA pros and cons from basic to comprehensive technical facts and statistics to give you an extensive view on which solutions will be your best fit.
General Comparison
General Information
We have provided all of the general information for 3 solutions to give you a better idea of their development and achievements up to date.
| PWA Studio | Vue Storefront | Scandi PWA | |
| Provider | Adobe Magento | Vue Storefront | Scandiweb |
| Started | June 2018 | November 2017 | September 2018 |
| Frontend Demo | venia.magento.com | demo.vuestorefront.io | tech-demo.scandipwa.com |
| Latest version | 11.0.0 | 1.12.3 | 5.0.6 |
| Number of Releases | 17 | 51 | 102 |
| Github | github.com/magento/pwa-studio | github.com/vuestorefront/vue-storefront | github.com/scandipwa/scandipwa |
| Github Stars / Forks | 843 / 313 | 8.9k / 1.9k | 415 / 236 |
| Contributors | 162 | 269 | 83 |
| Open Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Project Live by Builtwith
– Backend – Top 1m – Top 100k – Top 10k |
324 live websites
Magento 2 76 16 3 |
836 live websites
Magento, Shopify, Shopware 103 13 2 |
236 live websites
Magento 2 32 3 0 |
| Project Stats | Undefined | vuestorefront.io/live-project
500+ live projects. 80 showcases |
scandipwa.com/case-studies.html
57+ live projects 57 showcases |
| Headless | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Support | Magento 2 | Magento 1 + 2, Shopify, Shopware | Magento 2, Shopify |
| i18n (localization) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multi Websites / Multiple Stores | Yes (most stable) | Yes (beta) | Yes (errors remaining) |
| CMS | M2 CMS API / Page Builder | M2 CMS API | Full Support |
| Search | ElasticSearch | ElasticSearch | ElasticSearch/MySql |
| Payments | Braintree | Paypal, Stripe, Klarna, Mollie, Adyen, Checkout.com, Braintree, G Pay, Apple Pay | Paypal, Klarna, Braintree, Stripe |
| Analytics / Tracking | Google Tag Manager | Vue Analytics
Google Tag Manager |
Google Tag Manager |
| Offline Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Comparing the community of all 3 solutions by Github Stars, Forks, and Contributors factors, we can see that Vue Storefront has the highest number of people who upvoted the solution on Github (10x higher than PWA Studio and 20x higher than ScandiPWA). Moreover, Vue Storefront also has the largest contributor community, in which users can be assured that there is a huge pool of knowledge and tutorials shared by experienced developers.
On the other hand, Magento PWA Studio has higher ranking websites compared to the other 2 solutions. Specifically, PWA Studio acquired 16 websites in the top 100K and 3 in the top 10K global websites while its developed websites are almost one-third of Vue Storefront projects. This indicates the significance of Magento PWA Studio quality.
Additionally, if you are looking for a solution to adapt your emerging scalability that can manage multiple store views under one roof, PWA Studio is the most stable solution as Vue Storefront is in beta version and this feature in ScandiPWA remains many errors.
Featured Websites
Let’s have a look at these 3 solutions’ successful projects, which have illustrated each solution’s optimal features that contributed to the business’s performance. Most High to Very High traffic websites are using Magento PWA Studio and Vue Storefront solutions, however, companies using ScandiPWA are achieving an enormous volume of sales revenue.
Looking for a PWA development partner? Check out the top 9 PWA companies here.
Tech Stack Comparision
Based on 9+ years of experience, we have evaluated the tech stack of all 3 solutions to compare the difficulty level for PWA website development. Each solution has its PWA pros and cons so you can consider each factor to suit your specifications.
We have come up with our evaluation on the degree of development and deployment of each solution, which illustrates that Magento PWA Studio is the easiest solution so far thanks to its tech stacks.
Furthermore, we continue to explore the adaptability of these solutions to high traffic and their current issues to assess their Extensible Architecture level, known as their capability for expanded development/customization. In this assessment, Vue Storefront is the winner because it has the minimum number of existing issues, which allows developers to expand the capabilities in PWA development.
Theme Comparison
While PWA Studio and Vue Storefront are the suite of tools for creating new storefronts that developers can utilize, ScandiPWA is an installable PWA theme. Unlike many other PWA solutions, ScandiPWA does not offer the backend transformation, which can reduce performance, introduce errors, and demand additional resources for maintenance.
However, sometimes the interface components of ScandiPWA, such as buttons and text content blocks, are too small. Moreover, the logic of functionality separation is relatively narrow and not intuitive.
Fortunately, we have an alternative option here. Based on Magento PWA Studio, Siminia is an open-source PWA theme and responsive on both desktop and mobile. By speeding up page loading by up to three times, it improves Google ranking. The addition to the home screen and push notification functions makes it simple to convert your store into a headless storefront that is quick, interesting, and mobile-friendly.
Because of this, Siminia is an ideal option, enabling you to maintain the same backend that your developers are currently accustomed to while also incorporating all the benefits of the PWA technology!
>> Try Siminia frontend demo HERE.
Google Pagespeed Insight
PageSpeed Insights (PSI) provides statistics and data on a page’s performance on mobile and desktop devices and recommends how it might be improved. At the beginning of the report, PSI provides a score that summarizes the page’s performance. This score is determined by running Lighthouse to collect and analyze lab data about the page. A score of 90 or above is considered good. 50 to 90 is a score that needs improvement, and below 50 is considered poor (Google). A website with optimized Google Pagespeed scores will enhance its ranking on the Google search engine with better SEO performance, increasing its visibility to potential consumers.
Extension & Integration comparison
As PWA is a new technology, there is still no one-for-all solution for PWA websites. Each PWA provider is still developing their PWA solutions by more extensions and integration. Let’s take a look at each PWA solutions’ extensions and integrations.
| PWA Studio | Vue Storefront | Scandi PWA | |
| CMS | |||
| Magento CMS | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Storyblok | No | Yes | No |
| Contentstack | No | Yes | No |
| Amplience | No | Yes | No |
| Contentful | No | Yes | No |
| Bloomreach | No | Yes | No |
| Magnolia | No | Yes | No |
| LexasCMS | No | Yes | No |
| Payments | |||
| Checkout.com | No | Yes | No |
| Paypal | No | Yes | Yes |
| Braintree | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Stripe | No | Yes | Yes |
| Klarna | No | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Pay | No | Yes | No |
| Google Pay | No | Yes | No |
| Mollie | No | Yes | No |
| Third-party services | |||
| Algolia | No | Yes | No |
| Contructor.io | No | Yes | No |
| Talon.one | No | Yes | No |
| Cloudinary | No | Yes | No |
| Webeyez | No | Yes | No |
| KLEVU | No | Yes | No |
| Available PWA Extensions | |||
| Count | 0 | 0 | 49 (coming soon 14) |
| Login as customer | No | No | Yes |
| MultiSafepay Payments | No | No | Yes |
| Social Login | No | No | Yes |
| Store Locator | No | No | Yes |
| Magento 2 B2B | No | No | Yes |
| Magento 2 Commerce Gift Cards | No | No | Yes |
| 301 Redirect Upload | No | No | Yes |
| Upper Navigation for Mobile | No | No | Yes |
| UPS Access Point Navigator | No | No | Yes |
| Mageworx SEO Suite Ultimate Extension | No | No | Coming Soon |
| Amasty Improved Layered Navigation | No | No | Yes |
| Adobe Live Search | No | No | Yes |
| Compatible with Other Magento 2 Extensions | Need to customize | Need to customize | Need to customize |
| Own PWA marketplace | No | No | Yes |
Obviously, with long-term development time, Vue Storefront has developed many integrations for its PWA solution. It developed basic CMS integrations, payment integrations, and third-party services integrations.
Regarding payment integration, while PWA Studio only supports Braintree, Scandi PWA supports 4 main payment methods, and Vue Storefront provides most of the needed payment integrations with 8 methods.
Regarding available PWA extensions, Scandi PWA is the only provider with its own PWA marketplace and nearly 50 extensions (the list is still updated). All PWA solutions are currently not compatible with other Magento 2 extensions. However, users can choose to customize the Magento 2 extensions for their requirements’ fulfillment.
Summary
Because PWA solutions are being developed, each PWA solution’s pros and cons are still listed. Let’s compare the current performance, support, and other criteria.
On web analytics (Desktop)
| PWA Studio | Vue storefront | Scandi PWA | |
| SEO | 100 | 99 | 84 |
| PWA Best Practices | 93 | 100 | 93 |
| Performance | 55 | 75 | 89 |
| Accessibility | 97 | 89 | 88 |
| Summary | 345 | 363 | 354 |
| Winner |
Notice the details, each PWA solution has its own strengths. The PWA Studio is the best solution for SEO support, while Vue Storefront is evaluated higher in terms of PWA Best Practices and Scandi PWA is the winner for its performance. If we consider all criteria are equal, Vue storefront will be the winner on web analytics (desktop).
Based on other criteria
| PWA Studio | Vue storefront | Scandi PWA | |
| Integration Features | Winner | ||
| Number of Live Websites | Winner | ||
| Top Sites in 100k | Winner | ||
| Sale revenue websites | Winner | ||
| Number of Integrated Extension | Winner | ||
| Compatible with M2 Versions | Winner | ||
| Stable | Winner | (Still Beta for M2) | |
| Developer Friendly | Winner | ||
| Number of Payment Gateways | Winner | ||
| Community | Winner | ||
| Smallest Number of Issues | Winner | ||
| Frequent Updates | Winner | ||
| Official Adobe Support | Winner | ||
| Sum | Win 6/13 | Win 6/13 | Win 1/13 |
The final question must be: which PWA solutions will be the best? It’s obvious that there is no certain answer to this question. Because each PWA solution has its own pros and cons, the best one should be suitable for your business – depending on your priority requirements. If your first requirement is to have a stable and developer-friendly solution, your website should go with PWA studio. In case you are looking for a comprehensive solution with supportive integrations, the winner will be Vue Storefront then. However, if you consider the available extensions as the most important aspect, the Scandi PWA should be your first choice.
We hope this PWA pros and cons checklist can help you pick a suitable solution for your business. Therefore, if you are considering PWA solutions for your eCommerce website, an experienced consultant should discuss your requirements and advise you to have the best suitable solution for your needs.
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