How to Choose The Best Mobile App Development Technology? Native or Hybrid? Which is the best option?

Are you confused, whether to build your mobile app in Hybrid or Native ?!

As we know the importance of the mobile apps in the current world, it’s also equally important to choose the best strategy for your new mobile application. Well , this article will help you to choose the best strategy based on your requirement.   For Developing a new mobile apps, we have mainly two choices based on the platform,

Hybrid/Cross Platform
Fully Native

The common and traditional approach is Native, which uses Googles and Apples original tools to specifically target the mobile device like Android and iOS respectively.Objective c and Swift are the Native languages for the iOS application and Java is for the Android application.

The Hybrid approach is, Write once Run Anywhere approach, i.e. you need to write the code only in one language and be able to run the application on multiple platforms.Xamarin, Ionic, React Native etc are examples for Hybrid Platforms.

Feature comparison between Native and Hybrid.

User Experience

Native apps usually have better performance with rendering and animations than hybrid apps.The app Navigations and other Utilities like Calendar, Microphone, Camera have exceptional performance in native when compared to the Hybrid. When you’re developing a mobile application in Hybrid, actually you are not directly interacting with the user. There is an Abstraction layer in between your code and UI, due to this layer Hybrid Apps hampers the User experience and satisfaction.So it is impossible to provide a good user experience with just 1 app for all platforms.

Winner: Native

Environment Setup

Native development requires a development environment for each mobile platform you’re supporting. Hybrid development requires a native development environment plus hybrid components. The Hybrid App development requires the Mobile SDK common software and at least one native development environment—Android on Windows; Android, iOS, or both on Mac OS X. So After the setting up of any one of the native development environment, you have to set up the Hybrid Component Cordova command-line interface (CLI).

For the Native App development Xcode is using for the iOS Applications, and Android Studio, Eclipse etc are the tools for developing the Android Applications.For developing Android Applications we can install the Android developing tool in mac, but for iOS application, a Mac is preferable for installing the Xcode or we can install the Xcode in windows using the virtual box/Virtual machine.

We use the Native languages last objective C, Swift for the iOS Applications and Java, Kotlin for Android Application.Hybrid applications require only one langue for all platforms.We can develop hybrid apps on either Mac or Windows development machines, but you can’t do in-depth iOS development on a Windows machine.

Winner: A Tie

Development and Testing Cycle

This feature doesn’t need much description as it is clear from the above Features. As the Native is a platform specific and required a specific development language. Which leads to the demanding for more resources like developers and testers as well. Also if we have common changes on both applications, we need to change all platform specific codes. But the Hybrid is Write once, run anywhere approach it requires only less effort for the changes and required only fewer resources compared to Native.

Winner: Hybrid

Application Capabilities

Native apps have no limitation for accessing into all the device’s functionalities, such as calendar, camera, microphone, GPS etc. while hybrid apps grant only a limited access to them. Internet connection is not required by the native applications to work. This is a good feature, as the users will be able to use the app even at No internet case or places where there is no WiFi. A hybrid app cannot be accessed where there is no Internet connectivity.

So if you intended to develop an application with using these capabilities in depth, Go for the Native is highly advisable.

Winner: Native

Time and Cost for Developing and Maintenance.

This is one of the major concern of the end client, Undoubtley we can say the most cost effective way is Hybrid compared to Native. As it is required only less resource and effort for the developing and maintenance as well. Also hybrid required only less time duration for the development and the testing.

Winner: Hybrid

Conclusion

So, from the above comparison, we can’t declare anyone as the winner as they both have pros and cons in particular areas. So it depends on the developers and the customer requirement to decide the which platform is best and more suited for your application.It is advisable to go for the hybrid for the internal purpose applications and Native for the User-based applications. You can read more about Mobile app development here

We would love to hear back from you on your thoughts about the direction of the industry. Shoot us a mail at [email protected] or leave your comments below. You can read more about the mobile app development trends in 2018 from our previous blog post.

Choosing The Best Mobile App Development Technology

How to Choose The Best Mobile App Development Technology? Native or Hybrid? Which is the best option?

Feature comparison between Native and Hybrid.

User Experience

Winner: Native

Winner: A Tie

Development and Testing Cycle

Winner: Hybrid

Application Capabilities

Winner: Native

Time and Cost for Developing and Maintenance.

Winner: Hybrid

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