Native app development vs hybrid app development

Importance of UI/UX in mobile app development

Before we look into the Native & Hybrid app development platforms, there is one most important aspect of mobile app development that needs to be considered i.e., your customer.

Your customer is least concerned about the technology or the platform that power the app they are using.

Most users are concerned about what they can do with the app rather than what goes into making them. So User Experience and User Interface is the most important aspect of any mobile app.

79% of consumers try any app either once or twice if it failed to work in the first attempt while only 16% of the users would give it more than two attempts.

Poor user experience discourages users from using an app.

Native & hybrid apps – A quick overview

• Native app development

A native mobile app is an application created for use in a single particular platform or device, like Android, and iOS

A native app is specially made and coded for a specific mobile platform in its native programming language –

• iOS (Objective-C or Swift)
• Android (Java, Kotlin)

There are different guidelines for each of these platforms and developers need to stick to them as they differ in typography, graphic styles, gestures, visual effects, data entry, etc.

• Hybrid app development

A hybrid app is created as a single app for use on multiple platforms like Android, iPhone, and Windows.

Hybrid applications are actually native apps and web apps combined together.

It is a single product that works on many operating systems like iOS, Android, Windows, etc.

They look and feel like a native application but are actually run by the company website. Created with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, it is basically a web-based program put in a native app shell and connected to the device hardware.

Advantages of native app development

• Smooth performance

In native mobile app development, we have to do coding for different platforms using different programming language specific to each operating system.

So, we have different versions of a single application specially made for each platform. Being specific to that operating system, it runs smoothly over it.

• Speed

Considering the application has been optimized for iOS or Android OS, it will achieve higher marks in speed and performance tests.

While developing native apps, everything is considered including the utilization of the memory and the battery.

It is also very easy in native app development to implement gestures support for the app and integrate new functions.

• User experience

It is very important for mobile apps to make that good impression in order to not get deleted immediately after installing them.

In native apps, the feel and experience are much better with better scrolling, specific gesture recognition, profound effects and animations, much more appealing elements and so on.

• Data protection & security

In order to protect your data, the full efficiency of hardware resources is required and that is only possible in native app development.

• Flexibility

Native apps offer fast access to inbuilt device utilities like the camera, GPS, calendar, microphone, and other functions of the smartphone.

However, hybrid app development has certain limitations while constructing the interface because one single app will be used on multiple platforms.

In native apps, without any restrictions, everything can be implemented that the technology has to offer.

• Personalization

With so many Android devices available in the market with different screen sizes, only native app development is the way of adjusting the layout on each of them.  

Disadvantages of native app development

• Development time

Native apps need more time to develop as compared to hybrid apps.

Creating and implementing the design for every device dimensions like numerous varieties of Android, iPhones, tablets, etc takes longer to complete the app.

• Development cost

Developers usually have specialization in a single platform, be it iOS, Android or any other. In building a native app, you will need as many development teams as the platforms you want the app to be created on.

Multiple development teams imply multiple budgets. Also, future changes or updates will draw costs multiplied by the number of teams.

Advantages of hybrid app development

• Decreased cost of development

If you are budget-centric, app development occurs only once for all the platforms (Android, iOS, Windows) and you don’t need to hire different programmers.

• Maintenance

As we already know hybrid apps are web apps incorporated in a native shell, so its content can be updated as many times as you need or want. So, hybrid apps have low maintenance.

• Shorter time to market

How quickly do you want your app to go live? As there is a high competition in the market and the same idea being pitched by more than one entrepreneur, you want to introduce your app to the target audience as quickly as possible. If that’s the case, then you should go for the Hybrid App.

Disadvantages of hybrid app development

• Performance

Hybrid apps add an extra layer between the source code and the target mobile platform, more particularly the hybrid mobile framework. It can result in loss of performance but it varies from application to application.

According to the statement by Mark Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook) – “The biggest mistake we’ve made as a company is betting on HTML5 over native.” Facebook migrated its mobile app from HTML5 to native clearly indicates a significant difference as far as enterprise applications are concerned.

• Debugging

The extra layer from the hybrid development framework also makes debugging a bigger affair. Developers have to rely on the framework itself to play nicely with the targeted operating system without introducing any new bugs in the app.

• User experience

As compared to native app development, it is difficult to maintain a proper user experience between the Android and iOS apps. If you focus more on iOS, the user experience would worsen for Android users.