The question nearly always arrives the same way: "we want an app for our engineers". What is usually meant is not an app in the app store, but something that works on a phone. Those are not the same thing, and the difference saves a lot of money.

The difference in one paragraph

A web app runs in the browser. No installation, no app store, one version for everyone, and an update that is live for us is live for them. Works on any device, including the laptop at the office.

An app sits on the device itself. It can reach the camera, background location, push notifications and hardware like a barcode scanner or NFC. It can also work genuinely offline.

When you need an app

  • Working without a signal. Engineers in a basement, drivers in the port, stock counts in a warehouse with thick walls. A web app can absorb some of that, but real offline work with a local database is app territory.
  • Notifications that arrive. A push notification on the home screen is not the same as an email among sixty others.
  • Hardware. Continuous scanning, NFC, bluetooth with measuring equipment.
  • Background location. Trip registration that keeps running with the screen off.

If none of that sounds like you, you probably do not need an app.

What an app costs to maintain

This is the part that rarely gets budgeted. Alongside building it you get:

  • Two stores with their own rules, approvals and waiting times.
  • Two operating systems with a major update each year you have to respond to.
  • Certificates and accounts that expire. An expired certificate means nobody can install the app any more.
  • Users stuck on an old version, so your integration has to handle two versions at once.

Count on a few thousand euros a year in maintenance before a single new feature is added.

The middle road

There is a middle road that is often exactly enough: a web app that behaves like an app. You add it to the home screen, it opens without a browser bar, it remembers data when the network drops and it can take photos. What you do not get is real background processing, or push notifications on iOS as reliable as a native app's.

For most business processes that is the cheapest route: no store, one codebase, and the door stays open to add a real app later for the people who genuinely need one.