Building the Twitter 1.0 Web Experience
A Case Study on Twitter Lite — Crafting a Universal Web Experience Across Devices (2015-2022+)
Hey everyone!
We’re thrilled to officially announce the release of our newest case study: Building the Twitter 1.0 Web Experience 🎉. This comprehensive deep dive into the engineering and architecture behind Twitter Lite is now available for you to explore—and best of all, it’s completely free!
For anyone interested in designing fast, scalable, and user-friendly web platforms, this case study offers practical, actionable insights from one of the most impactful Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) ever built.
🔍 What’s Inside the Case Study?
Over 42+ pages, the case study uncovers how Twitter Lite transformed the mobile web experience, making it lightweight, fast, and accessible to users worldwide. Jointly written by Addy Osmani, Leena Sohoni-Kasture, Paul Armstrong, Charlie Croom, Nicolas Gallagher, and Hassan Djirdeh (editor); this project reflects the collaborative expertise of leading engineers who helped shape one of the most impactful Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) ever built.
Twitter Lite was a Progressive Web App designed to make Twitter accessible to users on slower networks or devices with limited storage. It minimized data usage, loaded quickly, and provided key Twitter features such as timelines, tweets, direct messages, and more—all within a lightweight app-like experience.
In the case study, you’ll learn about:
The business case — why Twitter decided to invest in a universal PWA for smartphones, especially for growth markets.
Engineering challenges — how the team tackled scalability, offline functionality, and responsive design across diverse devices and networks.
Technical wins — the architectural decisions that enabled features like instant loading, push notifications, and app-like behavior in browsers.
Impact metrics — discover how Twitter Lite achieved a 65% increase in pages per session and a 75% increase in tweets sent while decreasing data usage.
🖥️ How to Access the Case Study
We’ve made the case study available for free to everyone on our mailing list. You can read the case study on your favorite device by downloading it from:
Prefer reading it online? Head to largeapps.dev/case-studies/twitter to explore the case study on the web.
We’re super excited to share this resource with you and hope it provides valuable insights and inspiration for your own projects. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any questions you may have—just hit reply to this email. We have more case studies like this planned in the future!
Lastly, don’t forget to share the case study with your colleagues, friends, or on your social media to help others discover it too!
Catch you soon,
Addy & Hassan
Always a great read!