Native apps vs Hybrid apps – Which one to choose?

25 Jun Native apps vs Hybrid apps – Which one to choose?

When you decide to invest in mobile apps, then you are confusing between terminology. What apps should you build, native apps or hybrid apps? Your choice will depend on your budget and project deadline. When we talk about the app development, the first thing comes in our mind is mobile devices including smartphones and tablets.

There are two types of mobile applications: Native applications and Hybrid applications. In this article, I’m going to tell you in details what actually native and hybrid applications are. Let’s begin…

What are Native Apps and Hybrid Apps?

Native Applications and Hybrid Applications are two primary approaches to mobile app development, each with its own set of advantages and limitations. Here’s a breakdown of both:

Key Characteristics of Native Apps:

• Platform-Specific: Developed using Swift or Objective-C for iOS and Java or Kotlin for Android.
• Performance: Typically offer the best performance and responsiveness since they are optimized for the specific platform.
• User Experience: Provides a more seamless and intuitive user experience that aligns with the operating system’s design guidelines.
• Access to Device Features: Can fully utilize the device’s hardware and system features, such as GPS, camera, and accelerometer.
• Updates: Users receive updates through the respective app stores (Apple App Store or Google Play Store).

Key Characteristics of Hybrid Apps:

• Cross-Platform: Built using web technologies and deployed across multiple platforms with a single codebase.
• Performance: May not perform as well as native apps due to the additional layer of the web view.
• User Experience: May not fully align with platform-specific UI/UX standards, potentially leading to a less optimal user experience.
• Access to Device Features: Uses plugins or APIs to access device features, which might be less efficient than native implementations.
• Updates: Can be updated centrally since the app is built from a single codebase.

1. Native Apps:

When we think about normally about apps then it can be native apps. Nowadays the majority of people use mobile devices, and mobile devices, the majority of apps are native apps. These apps are written in programming languages like C#, Swift, Java, etc. To build iOS apps, Swift language is used while to build Android apps, Java language is used. Windows apps can be built in C# language. Google and Apple give app developer build their app on their own developer tools and SDK called Android Studio for Android app and for iOS Xcode. These tools allow any developer to build native applications very easily.

Advantages of native apps:

Why are the majority of mobile apps are native? There is a serval advantage behind it.

• Native applications provide fast and responsive because they build for the specific platform
• Native applications are distributed in an app store and play store
• It allows developers to access a full feature set of given platform
• These apps don’t require internet connectivity, although some apps required based on functionality
• Native applications have standard UI/UX for each platform, and so it provides better user experience

Disadvantages of native applications:

Although native applications have serval advantages, as well as disadvantages too.

• It is difficult to learn all languages; it means you need experienced developers
• Build native apps are more expansive
• To create simple native applications are not the best option

Example of native apps, Pokémon GO, Twitter are the fully native apps.

2. Hybrid Apps:

Hybrid apps are a combination of native app and web app and they work in different platform and behave like native apps. A user can install hybrid apps to their devices like native applications but it is actually a web app, not a native app. These apps are built on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It will run as a web view on the user device. The web view is a simplified browser within your app.

Hybrid applications are built using web technology and it’s typically used for the web. Hybrid apps are nothing but creating a website wrapped up inside an application.

Advantages of hybrid apps:

• These apps are built on web technology like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Hybrid applications are cheaper compared to native apps
• They have access to a user device’s internal APIs, and it can access a camera, internal storage etc
• Development is faster because in hybrid applications based single code
• Hybrid applications are scalable because once you build for one platform it can run on a different platform as well

Disadvantages of hybrid applications:

• Performance is slower than native applications
• For building hybrid applications, you have to depend on the third-party platform
• Hybrid applications have less interactive
• You cannot customize the app based on the platform because customization is more expensive

At last, each approach has pros and cons but my opinion is to choose native approach to build mobile applications because they have the biggest benefits for a company.

What is your opinion, share with me in a comment below!