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Progressive Web Apps (PWA) - The Complete Guide (Udemy.com)

Build a Progressive Web App (PWA) that feels like an iOS & Android App, using Device Camera, Push Notifications and more

Created by: Academind by Maximilian Schwarzmüller

Last updated November 2022

Our take

Based on the ratings of 11,487 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in November 2022. No course pays to be reviewed.

This is a service-worker-first course: Maximilian Schwarzmüller walks through app manifests, caching strategies, IndexedDB, background sync, web push, and device features like the camera and geolocation, building one framework-agnostic project the whole way through. At 15.8 hours across 208 lectures, it goes deep on service workers specifically, with two sections and roughly three and a half hours dedicated to caching alone before push notifications and native device access show up. Requirements are light: basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript, nothing else.

Reviewers consistently praise Max's teaching style, calling it methodical and easy to follow with code written alongside the explanations. The recurring complaint is age: reviewers from 2019 through 2022 say the Workbox sections specifically are out of date and that getting the code running takes real debugging, especially around package versions. A 2024 review still calls the course highly outdated overall and its pacing sluggish, and another review notes that browser support coverage leans heavily on Chrome and iOS Safari.

Last updated in November 2022, the course still holds a 4.6 rating across nearly 11,500 reviews, and most of the friction reviewers describe is solvable with help from the Q&A or FAQ, per several comments. For a developer who wants the concepts done right rather than the newest Workbox syntax, it still delivers real, working knowledge of PWAs. Anyone chasing the latest Workbox API should expect to translate some of what's taught rather than copy it directly.

Best forWorking web developers who know HTML, CSS and JS and want offline support and push notifications.
Skip it ifYou want a framework-specific PWA setup or can't tolerate outdated Workbox steps.

Pros

  • Deep, methodical coverage of service workers and caching strategies
  • Builds one real project covering manifest, offline support, push and camera access
  • Works with any JS framework, no Angular or React required
  • Includes assignments, not just video lectures

Cons

  • Workbox sections are outdated and need workarounds to get running
  • Some package-version issues force extra debugging along the way
  • Offline browser support coverage focuses mainly on Chrome and iOS Safari
Max explains it all very well and in a very smoothly progressive way. I'm really glad I took this course! Some outdated content though, which makes it hard sometimes to make your own code work
Emma L., a student

Listed as All Levels but really suits developers already comfortable with basic HTML, CSS and JS.

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What you will learn

  • Build web apps that look and feel like native mobile apps for iOS and Android
  • Use service workers to build web apps that work without internet connection (offline-first)
  • Leverage device features like the camera and geolocation in your web apps
  • Use web push notifications to increase user engagement with your web apps

Course content

14 sections · 208 lectures · 16 hours of video 1 quiz, 3 assignments, 25 articles

  1. 1Getting Started 11 free previews13 lectures · 48 min
  2. 2Understanding the App Manifest14 lectures · 1 quiz · 46 min
  3. 3The Service Workers17 lectures · 58 min
  4. 4Promise and Fetch14 lectures · 1 quiz · 47 min
  5. 5Service Workers - Caching19 lectures · 1 quiz · 1.6 hours
  6. 6Service Workers - Advanced Caching23 lectures · 1 quiz · 1.8 hours
  7. 7IndexedDB and Dynamic Data18 lectures · 1.1 hours
  8. 8Creating a Responsive User Interface (UI)10 lectures · 38 min
  9. 9Background Sync13 lectures · 1.1 hours
  10. 10Web Push Notifications24 lectures · 1.8 hours

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • Students who want to build web apps that look and behave like native mobile apps
  • Students who want to build offline-ready web apps (yes, that works!)
  • Anyone who wants to build web apps that offer access to the device camera, geolocation, push notifications and provide offline support
  • Students who want to leverage latest browser features whilst still supporting older browsers

What you need before you start

  • Basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript knowledge is required
  • NO experience with JavaScript frameworks is required

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Course Description

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) bring mobile-app-like experiences to your users without requiring them to install an app from the app store/ play store.

You still create a web application (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) but this course will teach you how to add features such as camera access, service workers for offline support, push notifications and more. This combines the best of both worlds: You deliver fast, engaging and reliable experiences whilst still having the reach and accessibility of a web page.

"Progressive Web App" simply is a term summarizing all the features allowing you to deliver mobile-like experiences. The topic is highly trending and it also is a topic which is here to stay! Not only is it strongly promoted by Google, it's also quickly being adopted by big companies like Twitter or the Washington Post.

Having the skills to build and optimize these kind of web apps is already an important and highly demanded skill for modern web developers, a trend which is only going to accelerate! Therefore, learning how to build PWAs will give you a competitive edge!

In detail, this course will cover everything you need to build amazing PWAs - leading to a score of 100 (out of 100) in Google's PWA auditing tool "Lighthouse":

  • Detailed explanation about what a PWA exactly is

  • How to use an app manifest to make your web app installable on device homescreens

  • Using service workers to offer offline support by caching assets

  • Advanced service worker usage and caching strategies

  • A refresher on Promises and the Fetch API as both concepts are heavily used in PWAs

  • How to improve user engagement by adding push notifications

  • A way to synchronize data in the background, even if connection is lost

  • How to access native device features like the camera or geolocation

  • Using Workbox to make service worker management easier

  • Explanations on how to turn your next SPA project into a PWA

  • And more

All these things are of course put into practice by building a course project. To ensure that you can apply the knowledge to ANY of your projects, the course project doesn't assume any JavaScript framework but focuses on the core features mentioned above!

So this course has a lot to offer, how do you tell if it's for you though?

It definitely is the right choice if

  • you already are a web developer (no matter if experienced or still new to the business) and want to prepare for the future

  • you enjoy working with HTML, CSS and JavaScript and want to leverage the full power the web and browser technologies have to offer

  • you want to deliver the best possible experiences to your users, using technologies like web push notifications or offline support

What do you need to know to get the most out of the course?

  • You need to know at least the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript

  • No advanced knowledge of these technologies required though

  • You DON'T need to know any JavaScript framework like Angular or React - PWAs work with ANY JavaScript app, even if you don't use a framework at all (actually, that's what we'll build in the course!)

I'd be very happy to welcome you on board of this course and start this journey together with you!

Max

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Instructor Details

Academind by Maximilian Schwarzmüller

Bundling the courses and know how of successful instructors, Academind strives to deliver high quality online education. 

Online Education, Real-Life Success - that's what Academind stands for. Learn topics like web development, data analyses and more in a fun and engaging way.

We've taught more than 3,000,000 students on a broad variety of topics. We'd love to teach you as well! :)

Keep learning!

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Reviews

4.6

11,487 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Brad Hobson on 7/14/2020

I like Max's teaching and believe the course is great opportunity to learn PWAs but near the end (especially Workbox) I would not have gotten through the course without someone in the community finding work arounds due to the lectures being out of date.

By Emma L. on 1/10/2020

Max explains it all very well and in a very smoothly progressive way. I'm really glad I took this course! Some outdated content though, which makes it hard sometimes to make your own code work (package-version-related issues). But I found answers both over the Internet (slack etc.) and thanks to other students from this course in the FAQ, so it is possible to overcome the outdated part of this course on your own (and if you want to avoid those issues, you can still install the exact same versions as Max). Anyway, from what I read from Max in the FAQ, those outdated sections should be updated in a not so distant future. So I do encourage you to take this course, it's really good.

By Marc Breisinger on 2/26/2019

I really loved the course, learned a ton and will definitely take more courses from Maximillian. He has a very good way of explaining quite complex topics and even when playing at a faster pace is still understandable. I also liked the scope of the course a lot, thinking that I know now really a lot about the topic. Thank you, Max, I'm looking forward to your next course! Marc

By Martin Gitau on 2/3/2019

The way he emphasizes on what is key to understand the course is awesome. The flow of the course is excellent. I would like him to helpus understand better what is an object, what are properties and what are methods in all the object he is using , he may even bring out an example of this before he chains them in his lecture, may be its because i do not have good experience in Javascript having come from php. That would help us more. otherwise its a great course.

By Miguel Phillips on 10/20/2018

Progressive Web Application, PWA, implement features of new and partially supported browser APIs -- this course addresses the subject completely and leaves the student with valuable artifacts and experiences in this journey of full-stack development. This course was so enjoyable that I feel like when I finish a great novel, the story stays with me. Max Schwartzmuller is a skillful author and engaging presenter. Presenting the PWA concept, feature, and browser support for each API, Max references industry standards and demonstrates each PWA feature in code. Additionally, Max delivers great value constructing the feature, applying JS patterns to implement each API, and verifying the feature in test.

By Ik Ming Huei on 10/12/2018

I came into Max's online lecture series after stumbling upon his jQuery-n-Node-Express suite of lectures on Youtube. I went through the entire jQuery-n-Node-Express lectures, and came away much more learned and enlightened. After googling online, i discovered his udemy courses. I have since studied through 5 of his courses ( including this one "Progressive Web Apps (PWA) - The Complete Guide"), and i must say that at end of each, i feel to have achieved a substantially sound/solid foundation, and feeling elated. "Progressive Web Apps (PWA) - The Complete Guide" is no exception, and i can only highly recommend it to anyone wishing to embark on a course as such. I find Max to be highly knowledgeable, but more important, able to impart his knowledge/know-how across in an effective and enlightening manner.

By María Florencia Córdoba on 8/14/2018

The course is great, easy to follow and Max answers really quick to any doubt you come up with. Though I do have to remark that the last module was really hard to follow, I did the exact same thing but I did not arrive to solve two out of the three exercises no matter how hard I tried (react and angular). I think it's because of a versioning problem, since I followed the same steps over and over, and also tried with alternative solutions. It wouldn't be bad if you could update that last module. Summing up, you do get to learn all the concepts needed to put up a PWA or at least some of its features. The last module was just a plus and an introduction into angular, react and vue with autogenerated code. Thanks Max!

By Franco Emanuel Vazquez Lozano on 8/13/2018

I feel I really learned important things about PWA. In my opinion this course was very complete and with that we are able to transform our new or current projects in a Progressive Web App. This is a starting point to began to dive deeper and learn more about. The only things I couldn´t do were the projects with Angular and React so I suggest to show the solution or the ideas to find it out because I was looking and I found answers saying that were issues related with compatibility of frameworks Thanks so much

By Jason Sprouse on 3/19/2018

This is a deep dive into the intricacies of Progressive Web Apps. Max does a great job covering many areas of development in detail. One of the most educational tutorials I've taken. A great mix of HTML, CSS and ES6 JavaScript applied in modern application development. I would definitely recommend this course to others. If you are interested in mashing advanced application development techniques this course sparks some creative ideas.

By John Heffron on 9/27/2017

I took a couple of other courses from a competing vendor before taking this one. The other courses glossed over--and even skipped--many details and features. In fact, when I finished them, I was left with the impression that PWA would not suit my needs. This course is thorough, with hands-on, follow-along examples. The pacing is comfortable enough for a moderately experienced JavaScript coder to follow. Thanks to this courseI look forward to using PWA technology in my current project. Thank you, Max!

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Overall Score : 92 / 100