As per the research, the total smartphone market will reach to 1.654 billion by 2022 and the total number of smartphone users will reach approximately 3 billion by the same year. What does it reveal? It simply means that you need to have a strong digital presence to ensure that you reach out to your target audience effectively and efficiently. It is not an option anymore to have a business mobile app, it is a necessity to get a competitive edge over others.
Before we start discussing hybrid Vs native app, we will discuss some of the key things that are important for the app's reach, success and growth.
Customer experience is more important than any other things
Whether you want to go for react native development or any other app development, you need to ensure that the app you develop offers impeccable customer experience to the users. There is no shortcut for that. If your customer does not find your app good and problem-solving, you are doomed instantly. There are thousands of app deployed on play stores and fail for the same reason- they don't care about customer experience. On the other hand, if your app has some issues with its features and functionalities, but if it helps customers to take certain actions they want, your app will surely succeed.
As per the research report, 79% of users will retry a mobile app only once or twice if the app fails the first time. They will directly uninstall the app from the device.
What is your goal for mobile app development?
It is another significant question that you need to ask yourself before you start the mobile app development process. What is your purpose for an app? Do you want to give a superior experience and want to entice your users with a flawless and superlative native app that can be integrated into their preferred platforms either android or iOS or you just want to create a minimum viable product that can be developed quickly and can be released on multiple platforms? Remember, your answer will decide the success of your mobile app as hybrid applications are easy to build and maintain, but might not give that superior experience that native apps offer to the users.
Now, let's discuss hybrid Vs native apps and what the key differences between them are.
Native apps
A native app is an app that is developed specifically for a particular mobile platform such as Android or iOS or Windows.
These native apps offer the impeccable experience to the users as these apps are developed under the strict guidelines of the well-established operating systems such as Android development and have a predefined ecosystem to follow while developing a mobile app. It looks natural, and feel good while using the app. Furthermore, with native apps, users can easily access and use built-in capabilities of the device such as GPS, contacts, camera, microphone and others. In short, native apps are exactly native to the operating system of the user’s device and built as per the native OS guidelines.
Hybrid apps
In a technical term, hybrid apps are websites packaged into a native wrapper. They feel like native apps, but there are many issues with hybrid apps. Hybrid apps generally built with HTML5 and JavaScript and are wrapped in a native bag. These apps load all the data from the website while a user navigates through the app, but all native features are missing here. For example, unlike native apps, hybrid apps cannot use your device's features such as GPS, contacts, camera, microphone and others. One advantage of hybrid apps is that they can run on multiple platforms as they are written using just one programming language.
Before we go for native Vs hybrid app comparison, let's understand some of the advantages and disadvantages of native and hybrid apps. It will help us to know which one to choose for your business mobile app development.
Advantages of native apps
Smooth and superior experience
Native apps are developed by writing code for different operating systems. For example, for iOS development, you have to keep in the mind the guidelines of the iOS platform and adhere to the guidelines and operating system. It works smoothly as it is especially defined for a specific operating system.
Speed and performance
When it comes to speed and performance, native apps conquer here as these apps are optimized as per the requirement of the platform for which they are designed. The app has been carefully developed while keeping the guidelines of the specific operating system in the mind. Hence, speed and performance are excellent and impeccable when it comes to native apps.
User experience
As we have discussed earlier in the blog, user experience matters the most and as native apps offer smooth and flawless navigation and usability, user experience is unparalleled here. The feel of using the app is appealing and highly effective in case of native apps.
Flexibility and compatibility
With a native app, it is possible to access and use different device features and in-built functionalities such as GPS, camera, microphone, contacts and calendar and others. It makes the app more flexible and compatible.
Disadvantages of native apps
Cost for developing a native app
One of the most important reasons why people switch to hybrid apps is the development cost of native apps. You will need to hire android developers for Android development and iOS developers for iOS development and the total cost would climb to the sky.
Time for development
When you compare the development time, native apps take more time for development than hybrid apps. The main reason is that it takes time to create an app for a particular operating system while keeping the requirements and guidelines in line.
Advantages of hybrid apps
Low cost for development
Compared to native apps, you don't have to spend more to develop a hybrid app. For startups and entrepreneurs, it is a pleasant situation as they are having some budget constraints in the initial phase of the business. You don't need to hire a team of developers as one developer can develop a mobile app.
Maintenance
Also, the maintenance of these apps is very low. Hybrid apps are web applications in a native body. Hence, you can update and change content as and when you want. You don't need to put any special efforts for maintenance.
Less time for development
When it comes to development time for hybrid apps, it takes very less time to develop a hybrid mobile app. Also, deployment is very easy and quick.
Disadvantages of hybrid apps
Not-so-well performance
When it comes to Native Vs Hybrid app performance, hybrid apps don't have more to offer here. There is a clear layer of hybrid mobile framework between source code and a mobile platform, resulting in poor performance.
Debugging issues
Also, debugging creates some issues here due to an extra layer of a hybrid framework. Developers have to rely on the framework to work good and smoothly on the operating system.
User experience
The user experience of hybrid apps is poor compared to native apps.
Native Vs Hybrid app comparison
Let's discuss a quick comparison of hybrid and native app while keeping some parameters in mind.
User interface
Native apps have an excellently well and rich user interface. On the other hand, hybrid apps don't offer attractive user interface as it uses web technology.
Access to native APIs
When it comes to access to native APIs of a smartphone device, it is high with native apps and relatively moderate with hybrid apps.
Updating
When it comes to updating the native app, you have to update the whole app to see the changes where the app code is updated through the market. For hybrid apps, they don't need a market for updating code as they will be updated regularly from the app store.
Compatibility
While comparing compatibility with other apps present in the device, native apps score high than hybrid apps.
Ecosystem
Native apps have a rich ecosystem of tools and in hybrid apps, the developers have to rely on third-party plugins and community support.
Navigation
Native apps have built-in navigation systems whereas, in hybrid apps, the webview will combine existing content with native app capabilities.
The expertise of the developers
You need to hire experts who have extensive experience in developing native apps. When it comes to hybrid apps, developers can easily develop hybrid apps as they don't need to have the expertise for each operating system.
Conclusion
Whether to choose a native app development or a hybrid app solely depends on the preferences and budget of the company. There are different pros and cons of both types of apps and you need to choose one that can serve your purpose for business requirements and objectives.
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