Native Vs Hybrid Vs Cross-Platform – What’s Best For Your Business?

The mobile app, inevitably, is the most preferred choice for businesses that are aiming to scale with the changing times and want to offer personalized services. However, the approach to mobile app development that specifically caters to business needs and helps them gain profits still remains a confusing choice for a great number of businesses.

The best option, in this case, would be to consult an experienced custom app development company that would be able to guide you toward the best suitable option for your business needs.

Three most reliable approaches to Mobile App Development

• Native App Development
• Hybrid App Development
• Cross-Platform App Development

In this blog, we will take an in-depth stance on each of these approaches and discuss their pros and cons at the same time.

Native Mobile App Development Approach

Native Mobile App Development is a traditional approach to mobile app development. When a mobile app developer develops a mobile app using native app development methodology, they are developing applications to function for a specific operating system. For this, you would need native developers who will build separate business logic for iOS and Android versions of the mobile app.

Pros of building a Native App

• The native mobile app development approach gives you the power to build a more intuitive and smooth UI/UX Design of the mobile app, as developers can creatively exploit native hardware and software.
• The developers have access to include much more features, utilize (hardware), and integrate APIs. Consequently, these are better suited for next-gen mobile applications that utilize AR and VR technology.
• Since Native apps are built specifically for a given operating system, they showcase exceptional performance and speed (on the condition that your mobile developers are talented enough).
• Native apps can be designed to work without the internet as well. Using techniques such as caching data locally, storing data locally in the database, or adopting the offline-first design principle, native developers can, with less difficulty, when compared with cross-platform frameworks, build mobile apps for low latency networks.
• More robust security than hybrid or web apps as there is less chance of occurrence of bugs in a natively developed mobile app. This is because the code base doesn’t rely on any third-party cross-platform mobile app development framework. Secondly, native apps don’t run on browsers, so are not exposed to web vulnerabilities.

Cons of building a Native App

• The Inability to reuse the codebase is one of the biggest disadvantages of the Native app development approach. Let’s say you built a mental healthcare app native to the iOS operating system; you wouldn’t be able to use the same codebase to run it on Android.
• Even though native app codes are easier to manage and maintain, the cost to do so is no less. Sometimes, these costs might also surpass the fundamental development costs.
• It is often challenging to find developers who can build a native app. As the development of the native app is language specific.
• You will often have to hire two different development teams, one for iOS and the other for Android, which also leads to an increase in development costs with a huge margin.

Hybrid Mobile App Development Approach

Hybrid mobile app development approach, as its name suggests, refers to mobile apps that render the functionality of both a web app and a mobile app.

Developers can use hybrid mobile app-building software to convert codes written in web apps development languages such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript into native apps. Here the developers might also integrate third-party APIs and plug-ins to render additional good functionality and features to the mobile apps.

Pros of building a Hybrid App

• One significant advantage of building a hybrid app is that the developers have to write the code only once, and the same code can then be utilized to render apps for multiple platforms. This saves time and resources and might prove to be an extremely economical development solution for new businesses (with fewer financial resources).
• Another great benefit of building a hybrid mobile app is the fact that it considerably reduces the time-to-market. Business or start-ups who wish to launch an MVP, in order to iterate and build the digital product based on user feedback, building a hybrid app might be one of the suitable options for them as they would be able to make the MVP launch much quicker than following the native approach.
• Hybrid apps are low maintenance. Since hybrid apps are developed from one code base, developers don’t have to maintain different sets of codes.
• Hybrid apps are lightweight. Morever, experienced web developers can use server-side rendering in conjunction with popular front-end frameworks like React.js. Consequently, rendering and loading time can be optimized finely that, as studies have shown, drastically improves engagement and performance.

Cons of building a Hybrid App

• Unlike native apps, building offline functionality in hybrid apps is not that easy and intuitive. Developers need to use Service Workers, Cache API, and IndexedDB to build hybrid apps that can work in slow or no networks.

  Read in-depth

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• Hybrid app users might face functional disparities across operating systems. For example, hybrid apps rendered on Android devices may not have some functionalities that iOS devices might have (and vice versa).
• Just like any other app, a hybrid app too has two components: the backend and the front. The backend code remains the same across, but the frontend is rendered through various frameworks. This compromises the navigation and the overall user experience of the app.

Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Approach

Cross-platform mobile app development approach is one of the most popular choices among businesses these days. Be it a small or medium size business, a start-up, or a well-established business establishment—the cross-platform development approach has become a go-to development approach to building robust mobile apps. It allows developers to build apps compatible with multiple platforms, operating systems, and screens with a single set of code.

There are numerous cross-platform frameworks that developers can choose from to build native-like cross-platform mobile apps. These frameworks come with multiple libraries of APIs and plug-ins.

Pros of building a Cross-Platform App

• Code-reusability is one of the biggest benefits of a cross-platform network. Even though a hybrid framework facilitates this facility, it jeopardizes the navigation and the UI of the application. Fortunately, this is not the case with Cross-Platform mobile app development.
• Building a Cross-Platform mobile app allows businesses to reach a larger set of consumers within a short time frame. This is because the Cross-Platform approach allows developers to build apps compatible with multiple operating systems, devices, and screen types. Hence, enabling businesses to increase the usage parity of the application.
• Just like Hybrid apps, Cross-Platform apps too are great for MVP launch and testing. In fact, due to their native-like feel and uncompromised UI, they are a much better and more robust alternative to Hybrid apps.

Cons of building a Cross-Platform App

• When compared to native apps, Cross-Platform apps might not be as fast and design friendly. But this difference is almost negligible.
• In order to build a Cross-Platform app compatible across operating systems, devices, and screen types, the developers have to integrate an additional abstraction layer of code. This sometimes leads to access consumption of data in the hands of inexperienced developers.

Choosing the right app development approach is as significant as any other business decision that you, as a business owner, might have to take. Therefore, consulting the right custom mobile app development Company would help your business in the right technological direction.