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a lot of software needs to work offline.

Software has historically been offline first. This is not a issue.

Websites can trivially work offline with service workers.

Honest question: is there a way to receive the equivalent of app notifications on a mobile app from a website? It would need to be more than just a text message such that clicking the message opens the “app” to a specific place regarding the alert (and automatically handling login).

Yes.

https://web.dev/articles/push-notifications-notification-beh...

This doesn’t seem like it would work if the mobile browser was closed, phone was locked, etc. Am I wrong? I’d like to get away from apps but this doesn’t seem like a complete solution.

Nope it works fine on mobile! Android can spin up apps if notifications come in & will spin up Chrome which will spin up your service-worker! I have my qualms with Android but this seems well designed! https://web.dev/articles/push-notifications-faq#why_doesnt_p...

Desktop OSes don't have anything parallel, so yeah, you need the browser running. But nothing has to be on screen.

Do you know if iOS has similar support?

Yes, push notifications don't require Safari to be open already on iOS.

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