Web App vs Website vs Native App: What Should You Build?

A website tells people things, a web app lets them do things in a browser, and a native app is installed from the App Store or Google Play and can use the phone’s own hardware. The web app vs website question comes down to whether your users mainly read or mainly act. The native app question comes down to whether they will use your product often enough, or need the phone’s features, to justify a store listing.

On price, our marketing websites start from £5,000, and both web applications and app builds start from £15,000. If you are not sure which of the three you need, a short scoping stage called product discovery settles it before you fund a build. This article defines each option and compares them in one table. It then covers what a progressive web app can and cannot do, how cross-platform development works, whether you can turn a website into an app, and what the app stores charge.

Key takeaways

• A website presents information. A web app lets signed-in users create and manage things in the browser. A native app is installed from a store and has the widest access to the phone.
• Choose by what your users do and how often they do it, not by technology. Reading and enquiring point to a website, work at a desk to a web app, and habitual or hardware-heavy use on the move to a native or cross-platform app.
• A progressive web app can be installed, work offline and send push notifications. On iPhone, web push only works for web apps added to the Home Screen, and some browser features are missing in widely used browsers.
• Apple’s App Review Guidelines say an app should offer more than a repackaged website, so a plain wrapper around your site is a rejection risk.
• Our starting prices are a marketing website from £5,000, a web application from £15,000 and an app build from £15,000, with app design and validation from £5,000.

Web app vs website: what is the difference?

A website is built to present information. A web app is built so people can do something: log in, create records, pay, upload or collaborate. Both run in a browser and both are reached through a URL, so the difference lies in what the visitor does when they arrive.

A website is a company site, a brochure, a blog, a portfolio or a landing page. Visitors read, compare and get in touch, usually through a form or a booking link. Most of the work is content, design and search visibility. If that describes what you need, a website is the right answer, and our website cost guide explains the price bands, including when a website builder or a freelancer is a better buy than an agency.

A web app is software you use in a browser. A customer portal, a booking system, a quoting tool and an internal dashboard are all web apps. Each has accounts and permissions, a database behind it and logic that responds to what each user does. If you have been searching for what a web app is, that last part is the test: it remembers who you are and acts on what you do.

The two overlap. A marketing site that gains a login area and a payments flow has started to become a web app, and that is where the cost and the engineering change. Our web development service prices them separately for that reason: marketing websites from £5,000 and web applications from £15,000.

PWA, native and cross-platform apps in plain English

Three more terms come up in every conversation about this choice, and they describe how an app is built and delivered.

• Progressive web app (PWA). A web app that can be installed and behave more like an app. MDN defines it as an app “built using web platform technologies” that “provides a user experience like that of a platform-specific app” (MDN).
• Native app. An app built for one operating system, iOS or Android, with that platform’s own tools. It is installed from the App Store or Google Play and has the widest access to hardware such as the camera, sensors and Bluetooth.
• Cross-platform app. An app written once and shipped to both iOS and Android, using a framework such as React Native. The result is an installed app in both stores, built from one codebase.

Web app vs native app: how to choose

The quickest way to choose is to look at what your users do, how often they do it and which device features the job needs. The table compares the three routes on those points, with our published starting prices in the last row. The native app column covers cross-platform builds too.

Compare	Website	Web app (incl. PWA)	Native app
What users do	Read, compare, enquire	Log in, manage records, pay	Repeat a job, use phone features
How often	Occasionally, from search	Regularly, often at a desk	Frequently, as a habit
Device features	Basic	What the browser allows	Camera, sensors, Bluetooth
Offline use	No	Possible with a PWA	Designed in
Push notifications	No	Web push; on iPhone, after adding to the Home Screen	Native push
Distribution	Search and links	Link or browser install	App stores, after review
Starting cost with us	From £5,000	From £15,000	From £15,000 (design and validation from £5,000)

Our prices are fixed and agreed before work starts. Three rules of thumb follow from the table.

Choose a website when visitors mostly read and then contact you. That is what a website is for, and it is the cheapest of the three to start.

Choose a web app when the work happens on a screen with a keyboard, or when users arrive through a link. It runs on any device with a browser and ships an update to everyone at once. It also stays out of store review.

Choose a native or cross-platform app when the product depends on the phone: hardware, push notifications, offline use or frequent, habitual use. A surveyors’ floorplan tool we prototyped, NicheCom, is a native iPad app because it works with laser-measuring hardware. It remains a prototype.

Web app vs mobile app is also a question of sequence. Start with the one your first users will reach for and add the other once real use has earned it. Our app cost guide, linked below, explains why building lean first keeps the number sensible.

PWA vs native app: what a PWA can and cannot do

A PWA gets you a long way for the price of a web app, and the gaps are specific. MDN says a PWA “can be installed on the device, can operate while offline and in the background” (MDN). For a customer portal, a field-service tool or a booking system, that is often enough.

The gaps matter most on iPhone. WebKit, Apple’s browser engine, announced that “with iOS and iPadOS 16.4, we are adding support for Web Push to Home Screen web apps” (WebKit). The same post says a web app added to the Home Screen can request permission to receive push notifications, as long as the request responds to a direct user interaction. Notifications on iPhone therefore depend on the user installing the web app first, which is an extra step before you can reach them.

Device features vary by browser too. MDN lists the Web Bluetooth API, which connects a page to Bluetooth Low Energy peripherals, as a feature that “does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers” (MDN). If your product talks to hardware, check browser support for each feature before you commit to the web.

A PWA is also installed from the browser rather than found in an app store, so people searching the App Store will not find it. For a business tool that users reach through a link, that rarely matters. For a consumer product that relies on store discovery, it does.

Cross-platform app development: one build, several surfaces

Cross-platform app development means building once and shipping to iOS and Android from shared code. React Native describes itself as a way to “create native apps for Android, iOS, and more using React,” and says its apps are “written in JavaScript, rendered with native code” (React Native). The output is a native app in each store.

We used it for Adinkra, a React Native app for iOS and Android from Aflé Bijoux with a library of 130 symbols. The development phase was done in under a month, at roughly half the cost of building separately for each platform. We recommend building natively for each platform only when the product needs something specific to one of them, as in the surveyors’ tool above.

Some products need more than one surface, each suited to a different job. Connect by CoCentric runs on iOS, Android and the web, with team chat, voice and video. Frontline workers join using a QR code plus an SMS access code, because they have no corporate email. Udokk, a health video platform, pairs a mobile app for watching with a web hub for uploading and publishing. Each group of users gets the surface that suits its job.

How to turn a website into an app

If you want to convert a website to an app, there are three routes, and they differ in cost and in risk.

1. Make the site a PWA. This keeps one codebase and lets people install the site and use it offline, within the limits above. It is the lightest route and often the right first step.
2. Wrap the site in an app shell. A thin native wrapper loads your site inside an app. It is quick to produce, but Apple’s App Review Guidelines (guideline 4.2) say an app should include features, content and UI that go beyond a repackaged website. Guideline 4.2.2 adds: “Other than catalogs, apps shouldn’t primarily be marketing materials, advertisements, web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links.” Guideline 4.2.6 says apps created from a commercialised template or app generation service will be rejected unless the provider of the app’s content submits them directly (Apple). A wrapper around a brochure site is a poor bet.
3. Build an app around what a phone does better. Pick the few things users would install the app for, such as push notifications, the camera or offline access, and build those as a real app on top of your existing backend and data. Our app development build covers the backend, APIs and store submission, from £15,000. If you want to see it before you fund it, app design and validation (two to four weeks) starts from £5,000.

Which route fits depends on what users need to do on a phone. If you cannot name three things, start with route 1.

What the app stores cost you

A web app or PWA sits outside the stores, so none of the fees below apply to it, although payment processors charge their own. A native or cross-platform app carries them. At the time of writing (October 2026), both developer accounts are priced in US dollars on the official pages, and we have not converted them or checked VAT.

• Apple. The Apple Developer Program is a “$99 annual membership” (Apple). Under the App Store Small Business Program, Apple charges “a reduced commission rate of 15% on paid apps and Apple In-App Purchases” to developers who enrol and made up to 1 million USD in proceeds in the prior calendar year (developers new to the App Store can also qualify) (Apple). Above that threshold, the standard rate applies. For auto-renewable subscriptions outside the programme, Apple says you receive 70% of the subscription price in a subscriber’s first year and 85% after a year of paid service, minus applicable taxes (Apple).
• Google. A Google Play Console developer account has a “US$25 one-time registration fee” (Google). For users in the UK, Google’s new service fees took effect on 30 June 2026. On the first US$1M of annual earnings, it lists 10% plus a 5% billing fee for auto-renewing subscriptions and for other transactions from new installs, and 20% plus the billing fee for other transactions from users who installed or first updated the app before that date. The billing fee applies when the purchase goes through Google Play Billing, and higher rates apply above US$1M, so read the current table before you model revenue (Google Play).

These sit alongside build, hosting and maintenance costs, and our app cost guide covers them together. Our maintenance and support starts from £400 a month.

What to build first

If you can describe the first thing a user does on day one, you can usually place the product. Reading and enquiring means a website. Logging in and managing records means a web app. Doing a job on the move, or needing the phone’s hardware, means an app. If the answer is a mix, start with the part your first users will use most and add the rest once it has proved itself.

When the choice is still open, the cheapest next step is product discovery. A discovery sprint takes one to two weeks and starts from £4,000. Discovery to a clickable prototype starts from £8,000. Both come with the scope and price fixed and agreed before work starts, and you own all the code and IP once the work is delivered and paid for. Once you know the answer, we build websites and web applications through web development and apps through app development. If you have already chosen an app and are weighing up who should build it, our guide to how to hire an app developer covers what to ask.

Book a call and describe what a user does on day one. We will tell you which of the three it is.