Progressive App Development — small scale stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Web Hosting for PWA (HTTPS-Required Static / SSR Hosting)
Encrypts traffic between your users and your servers. Without it browsers flag your site as insecure and you lose trust and search ranking.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Pages Free: Unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/mo, unlimited sites, 100 custom domains. Vercel Hobby $0: 100GB BW, 100GB-hours Fast Data Transfer, 6k ex. hours, 100 deployments/day. Pro $20/seat/mo: 1TB BW included, $40 per 100GB overage, $0.15/GB Fast Data Transfer over. Netlify Starter $0: 100GB BW, 300 build mins/mo.
Service Worker Hosting / Edge Runtime
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsWorkers Free: 100k req/day, 10ms CPU, 128MB mem, 3M CPU-ms/day, 1k KV reads/day. Paid $5/mo: 10M req/mo included, $0.50 per 1M req over (2026 rate $0.30/M discounted), $0.02/GB egress, unlimited Workers, 30M CPU-ms. Vercel Edge Hobby: 500k invocations/mo included.
Web Manifest Hosting & Validation (manifest.json, icons)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Pages Free: 1GB repo, 100GB BW, 10 builds/hr. Netlify Free: same as hosting. Cloudflare Pages Free: see above. PWABuilder validation Free OSS. No extra cost for manifest.json file serving.
Push Notification Service (Web Push / VAPID)
Reaches users on their phone via SMS or push. Useful for verification codes and re-engagement; watch the per-message cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsFCM Free: Unlimited web push, no SLA, quota 2.5M notifications/day per project soft limit. OneSignal Free: 10k subscribers, 10k email sends/mo, unlimited web push. Growth $19/mo: 10k subs included, then $0.002 per extra sub/mo, $15 per extra 10k MAU. Professional $99/mo: 50k subs.
Offline Storage & Cache API Infrastructure (IndexedDB, Workbox Cache)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsWorkbox OSS Free: self-hosted, no limits. Dexie.js OSS free. Dexie Cloud Free: 1 app, 100MB storage, 30-day version history, 100 DAU. Starter $29/mo: 5GB storage, 10k DAU, sync API. ElectricSQL $25/mo: 5GB sync, 10M ops/mo, $0.50/GB over.
CDN for PWA Assets (app-shell, icons, JS chunks)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited requests, 260+ PoPs, free DDoS. Pro $20/mo/site: WAF, image optimization, Polish. BunnyCDN $1/mo min: $0.01/GB NA/EU, $0.03/GB Asia, $0.06 SA, $0.01/GB storage. Fastly $50/mo min: $0.12/GB NA/EU first 10TB.
HTTPS / SSL & TLS Certificate Management
Encrypts traffic between your users and your servers. Without it browsers flag your site as insecure and you lose trust and search ranking.Pricing & free-tier limitsLet's Encrypt Free: 90-day certs, auto-renew via ACME, unlimited domains, 50 certs/week/domain. Cloudflare Universal Free included with CDN. ACM $10/mo: 100 edge certs, custom validity, $0.10 per extra cert, $2 per custom hostname overage.
Domain Registration & DNS Management
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare DNS Free: Unlimited zones, unlimited queries, DNSSEC. Registrar at-cost: .com $9.15/yr, .app $14/yr, .dev $14/yr, no markup. Namecheap .com $14.98/yr (promo $9.28 first yr). Route53 $0.50/hosted zone/mo + $0.40/million queries.
CI/CD for PWA Builds & Deployment (Vite PWA build, precache)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Free: 2,000 min/mo Linux, 500MB Packages, 1k Actions cache. Pages Build Free: 500 builds/mo. Team $4/user/mo: 3,000 mins, 2GB cache. Overage $0.008/min Linux, $0.016/min Windows build. Vercel Pro builds: 4000 min included.
Uptime Monitoring & PWA Availability + Installability Checks
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsUptimeRobot Free: 50 monitors @5min, 2mo logs, email alerts. Better Stack Free: 10 monitors @3min, 10 status pages. Startup $24/mo: 100 monitors @30sec, phone/SMS, 1yr logs, PWA manifest check. Enterprise $99/mo: 500 monitors @10sec.
Lighthouse CI / PWA Auditing & Scoring (Installable, PWA score)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsLHCI OSS Free: self-hosted in GH Actions, unlimited runs. PSI Free unlimited. DebugBear Free: 5 pages, 5 runs/day, 1mo retention. Starter $29/mo: 100 pages, hourly runs, PWA score history, budgets. Calibre $50/mo: 50 pages, 3 sites, budget alerts, installability checks.
Image Optimization & Icon/Splash Generation for PWA
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsSharp OSS Free unlimited. pwa-asset-generator CLI Free. Cloudinary Free: 25k transformations/mo, 25GB BW, 25GB storage, auto-format. Cloudflare Images $5/mo: 100k stored images, $1/100k delivered, $5/100k transformations. Imgix $59/mo: 100k origin images.
Web App Analytics & PWA Engagement (Installs, offline usage)
Understands your users and supports them. Drives product decisions and retention.Pricing & free-tier limitsPostHog Free: 1M events/mo, 5k session replays, unlimited projects, feature flags included. Overage $0.000248/event, $0.005/replay. Plausible CE self-host Free unlimited. Cloud Growth $19/mo: 10k pageviews/mo, unlimited sites, retention 3yr. Startup $99/mo: 500k events.
Error Tracking & Crash Reporting for PWA (SW errors, offline errors)
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsSentry Developer $0: 5k errors/mo, 1k replays, 10k perf units, 1 project. GlitchTip self-host Free unlimited. Sentry Team $26/mo: 50k errors, 50k replays, unlimited projects, 100k spans. Business $80/mo: 100k errors.
Secrets Management & Env Variables (VAPID keys, FCM keys)
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Secrets Free: unlimited for public repos, 500 secrets/org for private. Infisical Free: unlimited secrets, 2 projects, 30-day log retention. Doppler Free: 5 projects, 100 secrets, community support. Team $18/user/mo: unlimited projects, audit logs, branch configs. HCP Vault $0.03/hr.
Payment Request API / Web Payment Integration (PWA payments)
Moves money — charges, payouts to sellers, taxes, fraud checks. Highest-stakes integration: get it wrong and you break compliance or lose revenue.Pricing & free-tier limitsStripe 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction US, no monthly fee. $0: first $1M processed startup waiver via Stripe for Startups. Radar Free 1k evals/mo then $0.05/eval. Paddle 5%+$0.50/txn no monthly. Billing addition $0.25/invoice over 25 free.
Feature Flags & Remote Config for PWA (offline-capable flags)
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsFlagsmith Free: 5k MAU, unlimited flags, 1 env, SDK cache. GrowthBook Cloud Free: 5k MAU, unlimited experiments. Scale $55/mo: 100k MAU, 10 envs, audit. LaunchDarkly Starter $10/mo: 1k MAU, $15 per extra 1k MAU, $20/mo per extra seat.
Workbox / Pre-caching Build Tooling (vite-plugin-pwa)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsAll OSS Free $0: Workbox 7 MIT, Serwist MIT, vite-plugin-pwa MIT, unlimited builds. If hosted build cache: GitHub Actions Free 500MB cache. Custom build infra $0 self-hosted. No per-seat cost.
Background Sync & Periodic Background Sync Queue
Runs slow work (emails, exports, payouts) in the background so users don’t wait. Keeps your app snappy.Pricing & free-tier limitsWorkbox BG Sync Free OSS, IndexedDB-backed. Cloudflare Queues Free: 100k operations/day, 10k active messages/day, 5GB stored. Paid $5/mo: 10M ops/mo included, $0.40 per 1M over, $0.45/GB-mo storage. QStash $10/mo: 500/day free then $1/10k.
How this small scale progressive app development checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale progressive app development build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.