Differences Between Native Apps and Hybrid Apps

The popularity of mobile apps are enormous these days. It is so popular that most of the websites have their apps. New applications are getting added to Playstore and AppStore every day. The app stores of both Android and iPhone are flooded with applications.

Traditionally the developers had to design two separate applications for Android and iOS. It took a lot of time and effort. The organizations even had two different teams for developing apps for both the operating systems.

Hybrid App Development

Hybrid apps work across different platforms and still function as efficiently as native apps. It contains the elements of both native and web applications. It is the perfect mixture of both. Some of the popular hybrid apps include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

There is no requirement for a separate team of developers for developing the app for Android and iOS. It proves to be more efficient and cost-effective; it speeds up the development time. It makes the life of developers much more effortless. You can see the changes made in the code reflect in the application in real-time in hot reloading. It saves a lot of time and makes it efficient. And in a hot restart, the preserved state values are set to default, so you get a freshly compiled application after every hot restart.

Another advantage of hybrid app development is the minimal learning curve. As you only have to develop the app once on any cross platforms, the learning curve is minimal. It is a high advantage for the developers. Especially when they start, they need not learn a whole set of new languages to get on track.

Popular Platforms to build hybrid appsFlutter

In simple terms, Flutter is a software development tool developed by Google and launched in 2017. The primary programming language used is Dart also c, and c++ is used. It can be used in different platforms like Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux making it a cross platform development framework.

There are many beautiful apps developed using Flutter. Some of them are Alibaba, Hamilton Musical (Music app), Coach Yourself (Health and fitness app), Birch Finance (Finance related app), Hookle ( Social app). Here you can see the wide range of industries using Flutter.

React Native

React Native was developed by Facebook, a JavaScript framework based on the React library. First, it was designed for iOS alone; later, its popularity made Facebook extend it to Android, making it useful for cross platform development. The highlight of React Native is that a single code base is enough to build native-looking apps in both operating systems. It also allows for faster development with a rich user interface. React Native is becoming a developer's favorite because of its high flexibility. Many popular apps developed using React Native, Facebook, Walmart, Bloomberg, Soundcloud, etc.

Its primary focus is on the functionality of the User Interface. Traditionally, hybrid apps developed on the cross platform are known to be low-performance apps but React Native has broken the norms. Its rich UI and high performance is similar to apps made in native languages. The app's seamless performance makes it difficult to identify if it is developed in the native language.

Native App Development

The major difference between Native and Hybrid applications is based on the platform. Native applications are platform-specific, either Android or iOS.Native Application depends on programming languages that are supported by one specific platform. Java and Kotlin are usually used for Android, Swift, and Objective-C for iOS. In the case of a Hybrid application, it has a very high degree of reliability. It also offers excellent performance and a good user experience.

Native Apps provide outstanding performance and reliability. The users trust it. Native apps are independent, and the data is stored in the device’s memory or cloud storage. Native apps are known to be of high speed and responsive. Native App Development is also in its good time now.

Difference between Native vs. Hybrid Android app development

The major difference between Native and Hybrid applications is based on the platform. Native applications are platform-specific, either Android or iOS. But the Hybrid development process relies on cross-platform functioning.

Hybrid app development depends on web technologies like HTML, Javascript frameworks, etc. At the same time, Native Application depends on programming languages that are supported by one specific platform. Java and Kotlin are usually used for Android, Swift, and Objective-C for iOS.

The advantage of hybrid app development is, it is faster and less expensive. It is simple and easy to maintain. In the case of a Hybrid application, it has a very high degree of reliability. It also offers excellent performance and a good user experience.

In a Nutshell

The native apps also show high performance and good speed, and it also comes as a result of the platform-specific design. Also, another reason is it is developed using core programming languages and API. Here in native apps, as the user goes through the videos and content, it gets stored into the system. It ensures top-notch performance.

Hybrid applications are going to be the future of app development. React Native, Flutter, etc., are some of the best available cross platform supports. The apps made from these platforms are as good as Native apps. It takes out a lot of costs and human effort too. These platforms are also simple to learn and use. So for beginners, it will be of great help.

Natalia Jane is a freelance app developer in India. She loves to read a lot. She is really passionate about her coding skills.