The debate over whether you should go in for developing with native mobile app development or hybrid app development rages on.
Before we get started on this topic, here’s what hybrid apps and native apps are all about:
Native apps: These are built for a specific operating system, using a programming language such as Java, Objective-C, Swift, etc. A native app developed for iOS won’t work on Android devices, and vice-versa. These apps take longer to develop and cost more.
Hybrid apps: Technically, a hybrid app consists of an HTML5 web app within a native ‘wrapper.’ This is a mobile app written using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, and then compiled into native iOS, Android, or other mobile platform using wrapper technologies such as PhoneGap or Cordova.
The more recent technologies include React Native and Flutter from Facebook and Google. These apps can be easily deployed across multiple platforms and are usually the cheaper and faster solution to build a mobile app. Hire a React Native development company to help you build a hybrid app.
There are several factors that make hybrid app development seem attractive to some entrepreneurs.
The most persuasive being the low cost of development (developers estimate 30-90% cost savings over native apps), followed by time consumption and the convenience to run on any platform and device. App builder vs custom development is another topic of discussion that’s heating up in the mobile app development for entrepreneurs space.
Then why would anyone bother building a native app? Here are 5 situations where you’d choose a hybrid app over a native one.
#1 If you’re okay with an ‘okay’ user experience
Marko Lehtimaki, CEO and founder of AppGyver, wrote a guest post for Venture Beat, where he said:
“Hybrid apps are normally considered a compromise in terms of user experience. It takes a great deal of extra work on the part of HTML5 developers to try to produce platform-consistent user interface behavior, which typically falls short of that of the native UI.”
Here’s another expert talking about the look and feel of hybrid apps. James Long, a Senior Web Developer at Mozilla developer at Mozilla, insists that the mobile web will never compete with native app development.
In his blog post, he highlighted some radical statements about the mobile web.
The web isn’t close to competing with higher-end native apps. You may think the UX is getting close, but there’s always more jank. Let’s not even talk technical; even if it is getting close, when companies want to develop a beautiful, ground-breaking app, they choose native. I’ve talked to enough developers to see that we aren’t close to changing this yet.
In a report named, ‘Web, Hybrid, And Native Mobile Apps All Have Their Place’, Forrester insists that we will go back to the future; that “[n]ative apps [dominated] client-server days, but Web apps took over” and “History will repeat itself in mobile.”
Also, other research has shown that developer interest in HTML5 has slid, with the general consensus that HTML5 is best for a small subset of apps (such as an internal line of business).
Maybe, that’s the reason 80% of mobile interaction is done via native apps.
#2 if you don’t care much about users
In an article on Mashable, iOS engineer Eric Miller compared native and hybrid apps in the aptest way. He said,
“Native applications have the benefit of familiarity. Developers already know how to code for iOS and Android software development kits and can expect how they’ll function. Users are also already acquainted with these apps. They know the feel, flow and navigation and everything about the applications they already use on their native devices and trying to reproduce that using hybrid is a little bit tricky.”
“Hybrid apps always rely on a third-party framework to keep up with rapidly changing iOS and Android platforms.”
Another thing that can make you feel left out is that native development utilizes platform-provided SDKs that provide access to all available APIs.
This level of access allows developers to take advantage of the latest frameworks provided by app stores to ensure that their apps include the latest and relevant features. For example, many native apps will get the advantage of improved SDKs and operating systems announced at this year’s WWDC.
#3 if you don’t want to build interactive and rich media apps
Have you seen any popular gaming app built using a hybrid platform?
Probably not.
The reason being, hybrid apps are not the right choice for animation or graphic-intensive apps such as interactive games or rich-media.
BI Intelligence interviewed Michael King, director of the enterprise strategy at Appcelerator and he described what he calls the ‘slope of interactivity.’
“The higher up the slope you go, the more interactive the app. Your requirements for a native functionality grow as you move farther up the slope. Something like Netflix video consumption isn’t very interactive — apps like that are a great place to use HTML5.”
#4 if speed is not your priority
Let’s set some context here.
A few months back, parcel and postage comparison website Interparcel conducted a study of 2,000 Britons for finding the patience levels of people.
Here are some interesting findings:
#5 if you are okay with restrictions
When LinkedIn switched from a hybrid app to a native app, Kiran Prasad, LinkedIn’s senior director for mobile engineering, said the following for hybrid apps:
“There are a few things that are critically missing. One is tooling support — having a debugger that actually works, performance tools that tell you where the memory is running out.
If you look at Android and iOS, there are two very large corporations that are focused on building tools to give a lot of detailed information when things go wrong in production. On the mobile web site, getting those desktop tools to work for mobile devices is really difficult.”
When Should You Go For Development Of A Hybrid App?
While native apps do offer a better overall user experience, hybrid apps come with their own advantages as well.
The biggest benefit that hybrid apps offer is that unlike native apps, you don’t have two separate sets of code written for the Android and iOS platforms. The shared code can be deployed across both Apple as well as Android devices thus saving valuable time and efforts while essentially halving the cost of app development.
The question arises, when do you choose to build a hybrid app over a native app?
You should definitely prefer a hybrid mobile app over a native app if you are in any of the situations mentioned below.
