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Your company has developed an innovative idea for a mobile app and now needs to share it with the world. Need help determining which option will best meet your app development requirements? Choosing between hybrid or cross-platform development may seem overwhelming.
Still, we make this easier and save you time with Statista Projecting, which projects over 299 billion apps that will be downloaded annually, earning over 935 billion dollars in annual revenues. Additionally, users spend an estimated daily average of 4.8 hours using mobile devices, making mobile applications appealing across various enterprises.
Hybrid and cross-platform mobile app development strategies exist in an ever-competitive mobile app development market, each offering its benefits and drawbacks; choosing which will depend on factors like project type, user base size, budget constraints, and schedule.
This blog focuses on the options between hybrid and cross-platform app development, guiding you to make the optimal choice for you and your company. So, continue reading to gain valuable insights.
What Is Hybrid App Development?
Hybrid app development involves using web-based languages like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to code apps that run natively on an embedded web browser.
By taking this approach, developers can share backend code across platforms quickly and cost-effectively while developing apps promptly for multiple platforms utilizing hybrid development approaches. However, an embedded browser often produces subpar performance and inconsistent user interfaces across systems.
Your company should discuss native vs cross-platform app development when discussing development approaches; however, don't discount hybrid development as an option altogether, as hybrid can offer distinct advantages under certain circumstances.
For instance, when quickly creating and launching minimum viable products as pilot projects, hybrid is often a faster, simpler, and more affordable option than competing options.
Hybrid Application Examples
Numerous popular hybrid apps are available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Some examples of popular hybrid applications: Gmail, Instagram, Uber, and Evernote are among many widely recognized hybrid applications, along with Walmart and Airbnb.
Advantages Of Hybrid Applications
Hybrid apps present several distinct advantages over native and web applications. Hybrid applications offer cross-platform compatibility by being built once for deployment on multiple platforms (iOS and Android) using one codebase, saving time and development costs in deployment across different environments.
Read some advantages of Hybrid Applications:
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Cost-Effective Development: Since hybrid applications can often be built using web technologies, their development costs tend to be less expensive than native apps.
Plus, keeping one codebase for multiple platforms tends to reduce maintenance expenses significantly.
- Accessing Device Features: Hybrid apps have access to native device features like cameras, GPS navigation systems and contacts using plugins created specifically for hybrid apps - providing developers with the same functionalities found within native applications.
- Speedier Development Time: Hybrid apps can often be developed more rapidly than native ones because they utilize well-known web technologies that can be built more rapidly.
- Hybrid Apps Require One Codebase For Maintenance Purposes: Which makes them simpler than native applications that must be modified independently on each platform.
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Offline Capabilities: Hybrid applications have the ability to work offline or in areas with poor network connectivity by making use of local storage to cache information for users when no network connectivity exists.
This creates an optimal experience when users access an app away from WiFi networks.
Overall, hybrid apps offer an ideal blend of web app flexibility and native app features, making them the go-to solution for many organizations.
What Are Hybrid Applications' Limitations?
Hybrid apps have performance and user experience limitations due to an added abstraction layer, compatibility issues, or security vulnerabilities, necessitating compromise in development complexity and customization if these issues become an issue.
Here are some limitations of hybrid applications.
- Performance: Hybrid apps may perform less quickly compared to fully native ones for complex or resource-intensive tasks due to an additional layer of abstraction between code and device.
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User Experience: Hybrid apps may not provide the same level of user experience, as they cannot fully leverage all the device capabilities and hardware features available to them.
As such, these hybrid applications may offer less intuitive navigation, slower load times, and less responsive interfaces compared to their native counterparts.
- Customization: Hybrid apps may lack the capability of tailoring their user interface and behavior specifically to each device due to sharing one common codebase across platforms.
- Compatibility: Hybrid apps may encounter compatibility issues with certain device features and functionalities due to reliance on web technologies that may not be supported across all platforms.
- Development Complexity: Hybrid apps require experts in web and mobile app development to maximize development complexity and shorten development cycles, significantly increasing development complexity and leading to longer development cycles.
- Security: Because hybrid apps rely on web technologies, which have built-in vulnerabilities that make them vulnerable to attack, they may be more vulnerable to security lapses and hacking attempts.
Cross-Platform Applications
Cross-platform applications are intended to run across various operating systems and devices using one codebase, with cross-platform app development frameworks such as React Native, Xamarin and Flutter helping developers develop apps which run both on iOS and Android devices, web browsers as well as desktop operating systems.
Cross-platform apps may offer numerous advantages over single-platform ones, including lower development costs and faster time to market, wider audience reach and greater performance with device specific features and functionalities, which should all be carefully taken into consideration before choosing this approach for mobile app development.
Examples Of Cross-Platform Applications
Popular cross-platform applications include:
- Firefox
- OpenOffice
- TeamViewer
- Adobe Reader
- VLC
Read More: Is the Hybrid App Solution Worth $100 Billion? The Ultimate Cross-Platform Trend!
What Benefits Do Cross-Platform Applications Offer?
Cross-platform apps present various advantages:
- Reduce Development Costs: Cross-platform applications can often be developed using a single codebase, cutting costs by eliminating separate development teams for each platform and environment.
- Shortened Time To Market: Cross-platform app development can speed up time-to-market as much of their development work can be performed within one codebase.
- Broader Reach: Cross-platform apps offer more comprehensive audience coverage and possible revenue opportunities by being deployed across different platforms.
- Maintenance Cost Savings: Constructing cross-platform apps makes maintenance simpler, with just one codebase rather than multiple for separate apps requiring maintenance and updates.
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Consistent User Experience: Cross-platform apps offer users a consistent user experience no matter what device they use.
This ensures they enjoy similar experiences regardless of which device is in their hand.
Cross-platform app development frameworks boast robust communities with access to resources, tools, and support available within them.
Cross-platform apps present many advantages over time and cost, including audience reach, maintenance requirements, user experience enhancement, and community support - making them an attractive option for mobile app development projects of various sorts.
What Cross-Platform Application Limitations Exist?
Although cross-platform apps offer several benefits, several drawbacks should also be considered.
- Performance: Cross-platform apps may perform less optimally when it comes to graphics-intensive apps due to an additional abstraction layer used by cross-platform app development frameworks.
- Experience: Cross-platform apps may offer a different level of user satisfaction, as cross-platform development frameworks may not fully support some platform features.
- Compatibility: Cross-platform apps may encounter compatibility issues across devices and operating systems, leading to potential bugs or other issues that require fixing.
- Limited Hardware Features: Cross-platform development frameworks may not allow access to all device features, limiting the functionality of apps that utilize them.
- Complexity: Cross-platform app development can be complex and require expert knowledge in various development frameworks, thus making it harder for smaller development teams to manage.
- Dependence On Third-Party Tools: Cross-platform development frameworks often rely on third-party libraries, tools, and plugins, which may introduce additional security vulnerabilities and maintenance complexity.
Cross-platform app development may offer many advantages; however, its potential drawbacks should be carefully evaluated when choosing this approach for mobile apps.
When considering cross-platform development strategies as options for building mobile applications. Performance issues, UX issues, compatibility issues with hardware accessing requirements for different OSs on third-party tools must also be factored in.
How Should Cross-Platform And Hybrid Applications Be Selected?
Selecting between hybrid and cross-platform mobile applications depends on various considerations such as your business requirements, development timeline, budget constraints, and target audience.
Use these key points of reference to help you make an informed decision.
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Performance: If the app you create requires real-time graphics processing or notifications, native development could be your ideal option.
Otherwise, hybrid or cross-platform development might offer more cost-effective alternatives.
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User Experience: For optimal user experiences, native development may provide greater control of an app's UI and UX.
However, hybrid and cross-platform apps built using modern development frameworks may still deliver excellent experiences to end-users.
- Development Timeline: If your app needs to launch quickly, hybrid or cross-platform development may offer faster development timelines than native development.
- Budget: If your budget is limited, hybrid and cross-platform development might be best as they require less development effort while using one codebase for all platforms.
- Target Audience: When developing for one platform (iOS or Android, for instance), native development is usually necessary, whereas hybrid or cross-platform development could provide more excellent potential benefits in simultaneously serving various devices or operating systems.
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Conclusion
Overall, selecting between hybrid and cross-platform mobile applications depends upon numerous considerations that must be carefully taken into account when making this choice - these being your business requirements, development timeline, budget constraints and target audience.
App development services combine the best elements from both approaches by enabling developers to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms; however, performance may become an issue in this approach.
Cross-platform app development offers cost-cutting alternatives using one codebase across platforms. Still, it may only offer limited features or performance benefits for final apps created this way.
Your choice between hybrid or cross-platform app development depends entirely on your project's goals and specific requirements.
