alt Hacker NewsDoesn’t that require you to host it and have it available on the open web, though? Is there a host that allows you to, for free, not only HTML/CSS/JS but also access to arbitrary tools and bespoke scripts on the backend?
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I'm pretty sure that if you build your PWA in a way it works offline through caching (which is easy if it's just a static website), you could host/serve it temporarily and just install it once.
I host my app on GitHub pages for free. But yes, it's just static which is really all you need with how powerful wasm and JavaScript are.
Yeah it stands for Progressive Web App - but there are lots of hosting solutions with generous free tiers.
I host a bunch of my own PWAs on Cloudflare using Pages and Workers. It's been free so far.
As a lark, I built a set of personal productivity apps that are delivered as standalone local webpages. Works surprisingly well on Android, haven't tested on iOS.
For free? No, but if you built a native app that needed a backend, you'd still need to host the backend somewhere too. I host my own web apps from a cheap mini pc at home and access them over tailscale for personal use.