Creating a React PWA That Feels Native with Ignite UI Components 

Creating a React PWA That Feels Native with Ignite UI Components 

Whether you’re building dashboards, internal tools, analytics apps, or customer-facing software, a React PWA built with Ignite UI will deliver a highly responsive, installable, offline-ready experience with far less development effort. 

8min read

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have changed the way developers think about building modern applications. They combine the reach of the web with the reliability, speed, and polish of native mobile and desktop applications, without requiring app-store deployment or maintaining multiple codebases. 

For React developers, building a React PWA offers a huge opportunity: to deliver an installable, offline-capable app experience while still writing standard React code. And when paired with a powerful UI toolkit like Ignite UI for React, you can build production-ready interfaces dramatically faster, with a native feel right out of the box. 

In this guide, you’ll learn what a PWA is, how React supports PWA development, and how Ignite UI for React helps you create a fast, responsive, and visually consistent Progressive Web App. We’ll also build a small React PWA example using Ignite UI components to demonstrate how everything fits together. 

What Is a PWA in React? (And Why It Matters) 

A Progressive Web App in React is simply a React application enhanced with certain capabilities that make it behave more like a native app. PWAs rely on three core technologies: 

1. Service Workers 

A background script that: 

  • Caches files for offline use 
  • Intercepts network requests 
  • Enables instant loading on repeat visits 
  • Supports background sync 

React uses Workbox under the hood (when using Create React App’s PWA template) to generate and manage a service worker automatically. 

2. Web App Manifest (manifest.json/manifest.webmanifest) 

A JSON file containing app metadata: 

  • App name 
  • Icons 
  • Theme/background colors 
  • Preferred screen orientation 
  • Display mode (“standalone” makes it look like a native app) 

This is what allows the browser to show an “Install App” button. 

3. HTTPS 

PWAs require a secure context, as service workers are powerful features. When these three pieces are in place, a React progressive web app becomes: 

  • Installable — desktop, Android, and even some iOS scenarios 
  • Offline-ready 
  • Fast — thanks to cached assets and preloading 
  • App-like — via full-screen UI and smooth interactions 

React doesn’t enforce any special PWA architecture. Instead, it supplies tooling to make it easy to convert an existing project into an installable, reliable React PWA. 

Setting Up Your React PWA 

The fastest way to start developing a React PWA is by using Create React App’s built-in PWA template. 

Step 1: Create Your React Project 

npx create-react-app react-pwa-demo --template cra-template-pwa 
cd react-pwa-demo

This template does the heavy lifting: 

  • Includes a service worker setup 
  • Configures Workbox 
  • Adds a basic manifest.json 
  • Registers the service worker automatically 

If you use the regular template instead, you can enable offline support manually by editing src/serviceWorkerRegistration.js and switching from: 

unregister(); 

to 

register(); 

Step 2: Install Ignite UI for React 

Ignite UI for React is a library of high-performance UI components built specifically for enterprise-grade React apps, which is perfect for PWAs that demand speed and responsiveness. 

Install the components you need: 

npm install igniteui-react 
npm install igniteui-react-grids igniteui-react-charts

This gives you access to: 

  • Data Grid 
  • Category/Financial Charts/Pie Charts 
  • Inputs 
  • Navigation components 
  • Layout utilities 
  • Themed styling 

Step 3: Configure manifest.json 

Inside your project’s public/manifest.json, customize your app metadata: 

{ 
  "short_name": "PWA Demo", 
  "name": "React PWA Demo App", 
  "icons": [ 
    { 
      "src": "icons/icon-192.png", 
      "sizes": "192x192", 
      "type": "image/png" 
    }, 
    { 
      "src": "icons/icon-512.png", 
      "sizes": "512x512", 
      "type": "image/png" 
    } 
  ], 
  "start_url": ".", 
  "display": "standalone", 
  "theme_color": "#1976d2", 
  "background_color": "#ffffff" 
}

Key setting: 
“display”: “standalone” makes your React PWA feel like a native app rather than a browser tab. 

Building the UI with Ignite UI for React 

A PWA doesn’t succeed on offline capabilities alone. It must also feel smooth, fast, and native. This is where Ignite UI for React shines, providing:

  • Feature-rich, customizable UI components (both Premium and Open-Source). 
  • Consistent design system. 
  • Excellent mobile/touch support. 
  • Built-in virtualization for large datasets. 

Let’s look at how easy it is to integrate Ignite UI components into your React progressive web app. 

Example: Adding a Navigation Bar 

A PWA should have an intuitive navigation experience. With Ignite UI layouts, you can build one quickly: 

import { IgrNavbar, IgrNavbarModule } from 'igniteui-react'; 

export function AppNavbar() { 

  return ( 

    <IgrNavbar> 

        <span>React PWA Dashboard Example using Ignite UI</span> 

  </IgrNavbar> 

  ); 

}

Add it to your app layout: 

<AppNavbar /> 

Example: Displaying Data with the Ignite UI React Data Grid 

One of the biggest advantages of Ignite UI for React is its virtualized, high-performance Data Grid, ideal for PWAs handling real data. 

import { IgrDataGrid, IgrTextColumn } from "igniteui-react-grids"; 

export function EmployeeGrid({ data }) { 

  return ( 

    <IgrGrid data={data}> 

    <IgrColumn field="TicketNumber" dataType="string" header="TicketNumber" sortable={true} selectable={false}></IgrColumn> 

    <IgrColumn field="Subject" dataType="string" header="Subject" sortable={true} selectable={false}></IgrColumn> 

    <IgrColumn field="Customer" dataType="string" header="Customer" sortable={true} selectable={false}></IgrColumn> 

    <IgrColumn field="Status" dataType="string" header="Status" sortable={true} selectable={false}></IgrColumn> 

    <IgrColumn field="Priority" dataType="string" header="Priority" sortable={true} selectable={false}></IgrColumn> 

    <IgrColumn field="Updated" dataType="date" header="Updated" sortable={true} selectable={false}></IgrColumn> 

  </IgrGrid> 

  ); 

}

Features that come with the IgniteUI React Grid: 

  • Fast scrolling 
  • Sorting 
  • Filtering 
  • Keyboard navigation 
  • Adaptive column rendering 

Exactly what a native-feeling PWA needs. 

Optimizing Performance & Offline Support 

Performance is one of the primary reasons developers build PWAs. A slow app—native or web—kills user engagement. React + Workbox + Ignite UI is an extremely performance-friendly combination. 

1. Audit Your Current Performance 

Open Chrome DevTools → Lighthouse → Run Audit. 

Focus on two categories: 

  • Performance 
  • PWA 

A well-configured React PWA should achieve: 

  • 90+ Performance 
  • 100 in PWA Installability 

2. Use Code-Splitting & Lazy Loading 

PWAs should load instantly. Use React.lazy() to load pages or components on demand: 

const Support = lazy(() => import('./support/support')); 

export const routes = [ 

  { 

    index: true, 

    element: ( 

      <Suspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}> 

        <Support /> 

      </Suspense> 

    ), 

    text: 'Support' 

  }, 

];

3. Tune Your Caching 

Create React App’s PWA template uses Workbox with a default caching strategy: 

  • Precache static assets 
  • Runtime caching for navigation and API requests 

You can extend this in service-worker.js, for example: 

workbox.routing.registerRoute( 

  ({ request }) => request.destination === 'image', 

  new workbox.strategies.CacheFirst() 

);

4. Leverage Ignite UI’s Rendering Optimizations 

Ignite UI components are optimized specifically for performance-sensitive use cases like PWAs. 

Examples: 

  • Data Grid virtualization — only visible rows render 
  • Efficient DOM structure — fewer layout thrashes 

These improvements help your React PWA feel like a truly native application. 

React PWA Example: A Complete Starter Project You Can Use Today 

Instead of building a demo from scratch, you can explore a fully working React PWA example that already integrates Ignite UI components, offline capabilities, and service worker caching. 

The sample project is available here: 

GitHub Repository: 
https://github.com/IgniteUI/react-pwa-example 

Live Demo (Installable App): 
https://igniteui.github.io/react-pwa-example/ 

This example demonstrates everything covered in this article, including: 

  • An installable React PWA with a configured manifest 
  • Navigation and layout built with Ignite UI components 
  • Real data displayed using the Ignite UI React Grid 
  • Charts and analytics 
  • Responsive design optimized for mobile use 

Although more of a toy demo than a real application, it gives you a practical starting point for building your own production-ready React progressive web app. You can clone the repo, inspect the service worker setup, customize the manifest, and reuse the UI patterns shown in the example. 

If you’re looking for a ready-made foundation to build on, this is a good place to start. 

Wrap Up… 

Building a React PWA doesn’t have to be complicated. React provides the structure, Create React App handles the PWA setup, and Workbox manages caching and service workers automatically. Add Ignite UI for React on top, and you get: 

  • A polished, native-feeling UI 
  • Fast rendering 
  • Mobile-friendly components 
  • Built-in virtualization 
  • Consistent design across pages 
  • Tools that speed up development 

Whether you’re building dashboards, internal tools, analytics apps, or customer-facing software, a React PWA built with Ignite UI will deliver a highly responsive, installable, offline-ready experience with far less development effort. 

Start building your first React PWA today using Ignite UI for React and see how quickly you can deliver native-quality web apps. 

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