Progressive Web Applications with Blazor WebAssembly

A Progressive Web Application (PWA) is usually a Single Page Application (SPA) that uses modern browser APIs and capabilities to behave like a desktop app. Blazor WebAssembly is a standards-based client-side web app platform, so it can use any browser API, including PWA APIs required for the following capabilities:

Working offline and loading instantly, independent of network speed.
Running in its own app window, not just a browser window.
Being launched from the host’s operating system start menu, dock, or home screen.
Receiving push notifications from a backend server, even while the user isn’t using the app.
Automatically updating in the background.

The word progressive is used to describe such apps because:

A user might first discover and use the app within their web browser like any other SPA.
Later, the user progresses to installing it in their OS and enabling push notifications.

Offline support

By default, apps created using the PWA template option have support for running offline. A user must first visit the app while they’re online. The browser automatically downloads and caches all of the resources required to operate offline.

What is a PWA?

Originally intended for mobile devices (I say originally because there is now support for desktop PWAs), a PWA is a special type of mobile application built using traditional web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. All modern browsers support PWAs. They are called “progressive” because fundamentally they behave just like an ordinary web page in your browser, but once installed can progressively add new features like interacting with hardware and managing push notifications. The bare minimum for a PWA is a manifest and a service worker.

Progressive web applications (PWAs) can be described as a set of techniques that take advantage of modern browser APIs and OS support to provide an experience similar to a native application.

While this started as a way for web applications to offer an experience closer to traditional iOS/Android applications, it has expanded onto traditional desktop applications. For example, now Windows 10 provides ample support for PWAs!

Progressive Web Apps are web apps that use emerging web browser APIs and features along with traditional progressive enhancement strategy to bring a native app-like user experience to cross-platform web applications. Progressive Web Apps are a useful design pattern, though they aren’t a formalized standard. PWA can be thought of as similar to AJAX or other similar patterns that encompass a set of application attributes, including use of specific web technologies and techniques.

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