TWA
Telegram Web Apps — Telegram's framework for running web applications inside the messenger. Effectively a synonym for mini-app: HTML/JS inside a WebView with access to the Telegram API and TON Connect for wallet integration.
Aliases: telegram web apps, telegram web app, twa, web apps telegram
TWA (Telegram Web Apps) is the official Telegram platform for running web applications inside the messenger. It is the canonical term from Telegram’s documentation; in practice it overlaps almost entirely with mini-app, and across the TON ecosystem the two are used interchangeably.
TWA vs mini-app: is there a difference
Formally:
- Telegram Web Apps is the name of the technology itself: the WebView inside a Telegram client, the
window.Telegram.WebAppJavaScript bridge, events, buttons. - Mini-app is the user-facing term for an application built on that technology.
Inside the developer community TWA is used more often when discussing the API and technical implementation (“open a TWA via t.me/.../app”, “read the user’s theme through the TWA API”). Mini-app is used when discussing the product (“launched a mini-app with 5 million users”).
What sets TWA apart from regular web
For developers, TWA delivers three things the browser does not:
- User identity — Telegram passes signed initData with a user_id, removing the registration task.
- Payments via Stars and TON — built-in APIs for Telegram Stars purchases and TON wallet integration through TON Connect.
- System buttons and themes — native Telegram UI elements with automatic dark/light theme adaptation.
For users — no installation, instant launch, a single payment layer.
Where the term appears
In Telegram’s documentation, in catalogues of TON applications (TAC, tApps), in bot listings and in SDK names (@tonconnect/ui explicitly supports TWA scenarios). When an author writes “TWA game” instead of “mini-app”, that is often a hint that the discussion is technical rather than marketing.