Native or Hybrid Mobile App Development: What’s Your Choice?

Mobile app has become an eternal part of almost every business. It has evolved as a bridge connecting the brands to the mobile users across the globe; a medium allowing brands to serve their target audience with exceptional services and make their business.

Despite the growing trend of having a business mobile app, there are still few companies lagging behind from leveraging its benefits due to one single challenge- Which mobile app platform to choose? Should they go with Native apps or switch to Hybrid mobile app development?

Since this single decision can influence the whole process of building a mobile application, people usually begin to baffle when coming across this question. To help you out, here we will discuss the basics of both the mobile application platforms followed by factors to look upon for taking the right decision:

The Basics

Native Apps

Native apps are designed and developed for specific devices (Android phones, iPhones, etc.) and installed directly onto the device, is said to be Native app. These applications are written in specific programming languages (Objective-C/Swift for iOS and Java/Kotlin for Android platform), are stored locally and offer higher performance over the hybrid apps. Two significant native mobile apps are PayPal and Gmail.

Hybrid Apps

Such apps are built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and can be installed on devices like Native apps as well as run on a web browser just like web apps. They are easier to build, require less maintenance, and facilitate adding new functionalities to multiple app versions. However, their speed depends on the speed of the browser it is running on. Because of this, it takes more time to load the page or perform any action than an actual native app do. Some of the popular hybrid applications are Untappd, Baskin Robbins, and SworKit.

Factors to Consider for Choosing the Right Mobile App Development Platform

As you can already know, no single mobile app development approach delivers all the benefits.

So, choosing the right approach should be done on the basis of various factors, like:

App Complexity and Functionalities

The native apps have full access to the features of the mobile devices, and remains updated with the recent technologies. Hybrid apps, however, do not support all the features at once. So, in case your app depends highly on the built-in features of the devices, developing a native app is worthwhile.

In other words, refer Hybrid application development approach for building a mobile app based on simpler functionalities. While in the other case, go for native platform only.

Target Audience

One of the mistakes developers make while building an app is choosing a mobile app development approach without considering which platform their target audience is. As a consequence, their application fails to reach the right hands and they could not reap the expected benefits.

So, while deciding the platform, it is better to determine which platform the users are using. If they are primarily on a single platform, native app development is effective. Otherwise, go for hybrid application development.

Speed and Performance

A native app can better make use of the built-in features of devices, and can respond to the user’s needs faster than the hybrid apps. In other words, it can deliver the experience that hybrid or web applications can’t match.

Offline Accessibility

Most of the native apps do not need connectivity to perform. Thus, they are a better option over the hybrid apps in case you want to offer services in offline mode as well.

Time

If you are planning to launch your app on both iOS and Android platform, you have to build two different applications in case of Native approach. However, you can run a single application on both the Android and Apple devices with the Hybrid approach. This lowers down the time and cost of building the same app for different platforms, and thus makes Hybrid a winner over the Native approach.

Budget

If you are new to the mobile marketplace and are on tight budget, a hybrid application is a right choice as it will empower you to reach a wider audience with a single codebase. And this way, test your app on a grand scale. However, you are confident about your app idea, have sufficient budget, and all you want is user experience, then you should unquestionably turn towards native app development.

App Update

If you wish to push frequent updates, it is better to go for Hybrid approach. This is because the Hybrid applications can be updated from the web directly without involving the users into the process; thus allowing them to get an escape from updating app from the App Store regularly.

Closing Thoughts

Mobile apps have a great influence over the brand awareness and business growth. So, it is important to understand the different options available, and determine the right choice for your business. By considering the aforementioned factors, you can easily determine which mobile app development approach best suits your business needs, and leverage the benefits of mobile presence.

Bhupinder Kour is the Content Writer at Appinventiv Technologies who loves to pen down her understanding and knowledge in simplified and engaging manner.