Most founders building a new software product face this question early: web app or mobile app? The instinct is often to say “both” — but building both from the start is one of the most reliable ways to blow your runway before you’ve validated anything.
Here’s how to think through the decision.
The Core Trade-offs
Web apps run in a browser. They’re platform-agnostic by default — the same codebase works on desktop, tablet, and mobile. They can be built faster, deployed without app store review, and updated instantly. They’re easier to share (a URL beats “download our app” for most B2B use cases).
Native mobile apps (iOS and Android) have better access to device hardware — camera, GPS, push notifications, biometrics. They can work offline. For certain categories — consumer apps, tools people use constantly throughout the day, anything with real-time location — native delivers an experience that the browser can’t match.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) sit in between: web apps that can be installed on a home screen, run offline, and send push notifications. They close much of the gap between web and native for many use cases, at a fraction of the cost.
When to Build Web First
For most B2B SaaS products, the answer is almost always web first. The reasons:
Your buyers are at a desk. Accountants, operations managers, HR teams, small business owners — the people who buy and use B2B software do most of that work on a laptop. A web app is where they are.
You can ship faster. A web MVP takes weeks. A native mobile MVP — built properly for both iOS and Android — takes months and costs significantly more. If your goal is to validate a hypothesis as quickly as possible, web gives you that.
Distribution is simpler. Getting someone to visit a URL is dramatically easier than getting them to download an app. App store optimization is its own discipline. For early-stage products with a limited audience, you don’t need the friction.
Iteration is faster. Deploying a web update takes minutes. App store reviews take 24–72 hours (best case). If you’re in active learning mode — shipping changes based on user feedback every few days — the review cycle is a real constraint.
When to Build Mobile First
Mobile first makes sense when:
The core workflow is inherently mobile. Field inspection tools, route optimization for drivers, fitness trackers, anything that uses the camera as a primary input — these work better as native apps because they’re used in motion, away from a desk, in contexts where a laptop isn’t present.
You need hardware access. Push notifications, GPS in the background, biometric authentication, camera with real-time processing — native APIs give you capabilities the browser can’t reliably provide (though the gap narrows every year).
Your users are consumers, not businesses. Consumer apps live on the home screen. Social apps, games, content platforms — users expect an app. A web experience for a consumer social product feels like a second-class citizen even if the functionality is identical.
Offline is a real requirement. Apps that need to work without a connection — field data collection, transit apps, anything used in areas with poor connectivity — need native.
The “Just Build Both” Trap
The most common mistake: deciding to build a web app and a mobile app simultaneously for the initial launch. This doubles your development cost, doubles your QA surface area, and means both versions are half as good as either one could have been on its own.
Unless you have strong evidence that your target users require both (and most early-stage products don’t), pick one and build it well. You can always add the other once you’ve validated the core product.
If you genuinely need both — if your product has a web admin experience and a mobile field experience, for example — consider whether you can phase the build. Launch the web admin first, validate that people will use and pay for it, then build the mobile component once you know what it needs to do.
What About React Native / Flutter?
Cross-platform frameworks like React Native and Flutter let you write one codebase that compiles to both iOS and Android. They’re a reasonable choice when:
- You definitely need native mobile on both platforms
- You don’t need deep access to platform-specific APIs
- You have a team with JavaScript (React Native) or Dart (Flutter) experience
The trade-off: cross-platform apps have more overhead, can feel slightly less native, and hit edge cases more often. For most products, those trade-offs are worth the cost savings. For apps where the native feel is the product — high-end consumer apps, games — build natively.
A Simple Decision Framework
- Who uses this product and where? Desk-based professionals → web. On-the-go or field workers → mobile.
- Does the core workflow require device hardware? Camera, GPS, offline, push → mobile. Everything else → web can probably handle it.
- What’s your validation timeline? Need to ship in 6 weeks → web. Can afford 3–5 months → either.
- What’s your audience’s expectation? B2B buyers → web is fine. Consumer users → they expect an app.
For the vast majority of SaaS products — particularly the kind we build at Webward — the answer is web first, mobile later, and “both at launch” almost never.
If you’re in the planning stage and want a straight opinion on what to build first, we’re happy to talk it through.