Native Vs Hybrid Mobile Apps
Native Vs Hybrid Mobile Apps Development; which one is right for Your Business?
To keep up with the advancement in mobility and cloud computing, businesses are investing a lot on apps development to acquire and engage customers. As much as it is a business decision, it is a Technology decision too when choosing between hybrid and a native app.
Native Apps are developed in platform specific SDK’s and language. For example Objective C/Swift for iOS Apps, Java for Android and C# for Windows Phone. Native Apps require developers with specific skills for each platform.
Hybrid Apps, in simple terms, are developed in a common language and then compiled into platform specific apps using engines like PhoneGap, Xamarin etc. For example PhoneGap/Cordova – development is done using HTML, CSS, JS and then PhoneGap engine compiles them into platform specific apps.
While both the App category has its own pros and cons, this article covers key aspects of hybrid app development and native app development to help you decide better.
Here are few questions to ask yourself before you choose between a native or hybrid app:
Based on the above assessment and the below comparison of Native and Hybrid Apps in terms of their Pros and Cons, choose the App that best suits your purpose.
| Criteria | Native Apps | Hybrid Apps |
| Development Effort | Code written for one platform cannot be utilized in another platform so, Apps are developed especially for the specific platform | The code is written just once and then compiled into platform-specific apps. |
| Time | Launching of new apps is a time-consuming Job as every app is developed from scratch | App can be launched faster as there is no need to develop apps from scratch |
| Cost | Continuous investment is required every time an app is developed, tested and maintained | Proves to be economical as development happens for just once and apps are tested according to platform specific requirements |
| Resources | Turns out to be expensive to hire skill-based, platform specific resources | Relatively easy and affordable to hire people with skillsets required for Hybrid Apps (HTML, CSS, JS etc.) |
| Features and Quality |
You will be able to leverage the full potential of the platform which in turn can result in great user experience and larger app capabilities You get better performance, responsiveness and fluid experience for even complex scenarios |
Since there is an additional layer of hybrid technology, the user experience is not as great as native technology When there is a need for high performance, or use of complex UI animation, tricky touch interactions it becomes difficult to achieve good quality and performance in hybrid apps. A hybrid app can never match the level of creative user experience that you get in a native app |
| Maintenance and Enhancements |
The Codebase for all platforms is same so maintenance is relatively time and cost effective. If you already have the skillset in the team there is no need to retain platform specific resources Since you are dependent on Hybrid layer to interact with platform you may not be able to leverage the latest Platform features immediately, and may have to wait until your hybrid technology integrates and make available the new platform features |
Maintenance is more complex if the app is in multiple platforms as you need to ensure backward compatibility with backend for multiple platforms, need to ensure same set of features or business logic is implemented on all platforms, multiplying the effort. You will need to replicate features and fix bugs on all platforms resulting in higher cost and time. Keeping platform specific (multiple) skillsets on the team would be costly as well. |
End-Users generally bother about how intuitive and responsive your apps are and not on what you built them with. It is the user experience, performance of app and other key factors that matters the most for businesses to grow with Apps. Hope the comparison helps you select your choice of app.
