Which is better, Native app development vs. Hybrid app development?

Typically there are three choices to develop the mobile apps native, web, and hybrid applications. Now, which one is better for you, can be decided only once you analyze each of them deeply and know which one best suits to your requirements. Before start making comparisons between the two approaches, lets understand the terms, what is native and hybrid app.

Native App

A native app is a smartphone application developed specifically for a mobile operating system (think Objective-C or Swift for iOS vs. Java for Android). An application that is built for a single mobile platform that is actually installed on the user’s device. They can interact with and take advantage of operating system features and other software that is typically installed on that platform. It has the ability to use device-specific hardware and software, meaning that native apps can take advantage of the latest technology available on mobile devices such as a global positioning system (GPS) and camera. This can be construed as an advantage for native apps over Web apps or mobile cloud apps.

A native app is installed directly on a mobile device and developers create a separate app version for each mobile device. The native app may be stored on the mobile device out of the box, or it can be downloaded from a public or private app store and installed on the mobile device. Data associated with the native app is also stored on the device, although data can be stored remotely and accessed by the native app. Depending on the nature of the native app, Internet connectivity may not be required.

Hybrid App

A hybrid application (hybrid app) is one that combines elements of both native and Web applications. We define hybrid as a web app, primarily built using HTML5 and JavaScript, that is then wrapped inside a thin native container that provides access to native platform features. Like the websites on the internet, hybrid mobile apps are built with a combination of web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The key difference is that hybrid apps are hosted inside a native application that utilizes a mobile platform’s WebView.

Both approches have their own advantages and disadvantages, based on which we can decide your app has to be native or hybrid app?

1. Development Cost and Time

Hybrid apps take least amount of time to develop and are developed at a fairly cheaper price as compared to native app. Building a hybrid app means maintaining just one code whereas with native code you need an app developer for each platform. But this does not mean that native apps are bad because they have their own advantages.

2. User Experience

Native apps provide the best user experience because they are specifically designed for a single app store with which one can get the best compatible apps. The screen size is taken care off and so are the hardware capabilities. whereas with Hybrid apps it is impossible to provide a good experience with just 1 app for all platforms.

3. Paid or Free app

Since native apps have the best UI hence paid apps are usually advised to be developed as native apps whereas free apps can be developed as hybrid apps.

4. Code Reusability

For native apps, code used for one platform only works for that platform, whereas most hybrid tools enable portability of a single code base to the major mobile platforms.

5. Performance

Native code has direct access to platform functionality, resulting in better performance. In complex hybrid apps, the abstraction layer often prevent native like performance.

Conclusion

Based on the above discussion points, it will be helpful for you to decide on to which is best for your organization, native or hybrid apps.