My experience of on-line initial PPL applications is that the process is extremely quick, much facter than a paper application with a licence issued in one case within a week. It helps if you go to someone who can
a) certify documents
b) has done it all before and know what the requirements are.

I do admit that it took a few goes to get familiar with it and agree it would help if it gave a list of things to get ready on the front page.. There is the facility to store the work you've done so far and of course you can retrieve that at any location if you need to go and get something certified or collect more information.
Also, having the payment bit halfway through is a bit confusing, too!

TOO

A few years back, I did conversion from FAA PPL to EASA with CAA. It took me 3 months to get the license although the papers were complete. As I fly on the continent, mostly in France, Germany and Spain and in view of the imminent Brexit, had to transfer the license to France. CAA promised to do fast in view of the special circumstances, it nevertheless took two months to transfer my medical records. It took the French DGAC just a couple of days to issue the license after receiving the records from the UK CAA. Besides, the French charge much less than the CAA for issuing license and the administration work.