Show HN: Pep – Turn your site into a fast, installable Progressive Web App (PWA)

by grunon 2/9/2021, 6:30 PMwith 21 comments

by grunon 2/9/2021, 7:40 PM

Hey guys! I'm Ansgar (https://github.com/gruns). I built Pep because I believe Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are the future. They turn websites into apps that load quickly, work offline, and can be installed like native apps.

But they they can be a lot of work. And hard to get right.

We built Pep to solve that.

I'd love to hear your thoughts -- good and bad. Feedback is how good products become great.

by nhanceon 2/9/2021, 8:16 PM

What's actually involved in turning your site into a PWA? I don't see why this needs to be a subscription service vs a one-off or javascript library I can manage myself.

by smallarton 2/9/2021, 8:25 PM

Cool, it actually does what it claims to.

I just added pep.dev/pep-sw.js to my site and am digging into the minified javascript. Confirmed my images are on the CDN and resized for the device, which should save a ton of bandwidth.

The offline native feature seems super cool, going to try it out...

by Gyson 2/9/2021, 8:13 PM

Sorry, I understand you want this to be done for every website, but personally I hope this will not get wide spread. It reminds me of browser notifications and newsletter signups. Another thing I have to click away: 'please install our website as PWA NOW'.

by WalterSearon 2/9/2021, 7:24 PM

It's not clear what this involves. Do I have to upload my site to your server?

by sanmakon 2/10/2021, 7:06 AM

To author, I added for my blog, https://www.boxpiper.com/. It works as you said, but it slows down the website a bit.

Can you have a look why exactly it happens?

Installation feature is cool. Kudos.

by nexthashon 2/10/2021, 1:44 AM

How does this work with complex frameworks like React? Does it manipulate components themselves to allow them to work offline, or does it just check for/cache the production JS/HTML/CSS? If so, how would it compare to a server-side rendering framework like Next.js?

by paveloomon 2/9/2021, 8:31 PM

How is it different from modern browsers' built-in `turn a site in a PWA` feature? Chrome allows to install several sites as PWAs, Yandex Browser allows that for any site.

by BugWatchon 2/10/2021, 3:37 AM

I have only given it cursory look thus far, but I would certainly like to thank you for including what seems a decently functional free tier (IMO).

by whycombagatoron 2/9/2021, 8:55 PM

Love the idea, the second P in “pep” is cutoff on the homepage using an iPhone SE2.