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I'm developing an application using mongodb, Node.JS and PWA. In the first step of developing I don't know what is the difference between manifest.json and manifest.webmanifest.

Mostafa Ghadimi
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3 Answers3

47

There are no big difference rather than naming. Use whichever you prefer: href="/manifest.webmanifest" or "/manifest.json". Just don't forget that MIME type has to be: application/manifest+json in both cases.

<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.webmanifest">
<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json">

Note that spec says it should be manifest.webmanifest. And later it may be important because it is under heavy development.

For more info check: W3C and MDN

Arseniy-II
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  • I have seen the link you sent before I ask the question. The problem is that I can't understand the difference of them. – Mostafa Ghadimi Sep 03 '18 at 21:38
  • As I have understood it is under development and they considering is it worth to add some specific extension or not. So e.g why we have `.css` and `.html` files when it is usual text file why not `.txt`? Because it is more clear and reliable. I believe here is the same deal. `.webmanifest` only for clarification where it should be used, while syntacis will be 100% same as `.json`. But Is it realy worth to add specific extention? It is still not cleare because it may confuse some developers as we can clearly see now :) – Arseniy-II Sep 04 '18 at 08:08
  • hmm, I think they have some differences as you said it is confusing, but I don't know them. – Mostafa Ghadimi Sep 04 '18 at 08:49
  • I realy doubt they have. I beleive you can provide whatever name and whatever extention just it should match with `` in header and should be in JSON format. So it can be `` – Arseniy-II Sep 04 '18 at 09:23
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November 2019 Update

The difference is mentioned in MDN (Mozilla Developer Network):

The .webmanifest extension is specified in the Media type registration section of the specification (the response of the manifest file should return Content-Type: application/manifest+json). Browsers generally support manifests with other appropriate extensions like .json (Content-Type: application/json).

You can read more details on: Media Type Registration

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Mostafa Ghadimi
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4

Like mentioned in the other answers, there's not much of a difference in both.
But, according to webhint.io, it is recommended to use manifest.webmanifest.

manifest-file-extension warns against using non-standard file extensions for the web app manifest file.

While the .webmanifest file extension is not enforced by the specification, nor is it required by browsers, using it makes it:

This is also displayed as a tip in Microsoft Edge Browser Dev-tools in the issue panel (screenshot below)

Screenshot of Edge Devtools

Gangula
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