Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you suddenly realized that you can’t find your smartphone in your pocket? Remember this feeling of deep despair and sorrow?

Let’s be honest, we’ve grown so used to our smartphones that they’ve become an integral part of our life. Whether you need to order food, play video games, listen to music or even find a date for some event, you can always find an app for it.

The preferences and expectations and preferences of users from around the world create certain requirements for apps. They need to be user-friendly, highly responsive and reliable.

An average user would download an app only ONCE. In case it failed to perform its function the first time, they might give it a second chance if he’s really interested in it. However, don’t expect users to give your app a third chance. If your app stood your potential user up, they will probably be discouraged from ever using your app again.

That’s why you need to get serious for a decision on choosing which path: the Native one or the Hybrid one. In this episode, we’ll talk about two similar but at the same time very different directions — Native and Hybrid Mobile Apps Development. We’ll look at them from different perspectives and try to choose the most suitable way for your business.

Before we go into the details of the development process, we need to know the basics.

Native App

Native app is coded in a specific programming language (depending on the platform), such as Kotlin or Java for Android, C# for Windows Phone, and Swift or Objective-C for iOS.

Since the UI of these platforms differ from each other, the programmers should take into account the guidelines of a platform for which they make an app.

By the way, did you know the Facebook app was initially written in HTML5 in order to use the same code for different platforms. However, it worked significantly slower on iOS devices, so developers had to create a separate code for iOS.

Hybrid App

Hybrid app combines the elements of both native and web applications. It has two main parts. The first one is backend, which is a webpage written in JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. And the second part is responsible for loading the code using Webview.

Among hybrid apps, is our numero uno favorite Instagram. Since this app is hybrid, it supports HTML5, which allows using offline data including rich media, such as its signature short videos. ‘

Here comes the main question, “Which approach should I choose? What will be better for my business?” Let’s find out it together, friends!

App Performance

This criterion is crucial for all mobile users. Who wants to use an app, which takes months to load. Spoiler Alert: “No One.” :)

The big advantage of native apps is their capability of “communicating” with the hardware of a device. This gives them a big advantage in terms of performance as they don’t depend on the Internet connection speed.

Unfortunately, flawless performance is not a visiting card of hybrid apps. They load in a browser-like component “webview” that is responsible for both running Javascript code and the user interface. That’s why they depend on the webview performance. Basically, this means that the speed of your hybrid app may depend on the speed of your Internet connection.

Admittedly, these platforms are quite different from each other, though much depends on goals of your project.

When we developed a life-saving app for students, we came to the conclusion that even the slightest delay could turn fatal.

A Life-Saving App For Students: Knightly Case Study

Summing up: If an app with a series of pages and no impressive graphics is good for you, choose a hybrid app development. On the other hand, if you want to build something complex with real-time updates or 3D graphics an OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE, you need to walk towards native app development.

User Experience

Nowadays, more than ever, User Experience is crucial. 20 years ago, a situation could be a little bit different. Just look at how Apple website used to look like.

However, everything is different So it’s User Experience that can bring to your app huge success or make your pass by it. First impressions are the most lasting. If you failed, you’ll never get a second chance.

Great looking UI elements, smooth scrolling, and cool animation and effects. All of these make them win this round.

In case you decided to choose a hybrid app, you’ll have to make an app as close to native design as possible. Also, don’t forget to adopt its UI for various platforms at the same time. To solve this challenge, you’ll need to find a professional designer, who will be able to solve all these challenges.

Development Time

Until now, we talked only about the pros of native development, though its competitor has its own strengths.

First of all, hybrid development is quicker in terms of speed development. For small projects or those that are on a budget, there’s no need to hire a big team of developers. For example, a designer will have to do the simple set of graphics. Besides, hybrid apps have a single code base, which makes the development process quicker.

Besides, you won’t need much time for adapting features to various platforms, rather than considering different screen sizes of various devices when creating a design.

Development Cost

The overwhelming majority of programmers, work only in one direction, whether it’s Android, iOS or Windows Phone development. This means that you’ll need to hire a few developers team (for several platforms). Consequently, you might need to increase the budget on your app development.

Since it’s often better to implement an idea using HTML or JS rather than with Swift or Kotlin, the development process may be cheaper. Protip: fewer resources mean a smaller budget.

So we looked at the main factors that definitely need to be taken into account if you decided to develop an app. Before reaching a final verdict, let’s sum everything up and look closely at all pros and cons of both development processes.

Native App Development

• Great User Experience. Great UI that allows your users to act on intuition and understand the functionality a little easier.
• An Outstanding Performance. App optimization improves the performance. When developing a native app, everything is considered starting from the battery and finishing the phone specifications. As a result, the code works faster and features integrate quicker.
• Being flexible. Access to all the functions of a smartphone including camera, databases and so on. However, it brings certain limitations in terms of interface building (as it will be used on various platforms).

Hybrid App Development

• Quicker and cheaper development.
• Support. The development cycle is simpler and bugs can be fixed within the shortest period of time. Additionally, all updates are from the server side.
• United Logic. Since one code is used for all platforms, there’s no need to re-check and debug logic for each platform. This can save oodles of time.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to implementing a business idea, there’s no single perfect strategy that would satisfy everyone needs. There are too many factors that depend on your goal, starting from the scope of your project and finishing the size of your budget.

If you need an app that requires constant Internet connection (for downloading files or you already have a cool website and want an app within the shortest period of time — go for Hybrid development. Nevertheless, in order to avoid making mistakes, weight up the pros and cons before making a final decision.

On the other hand, if you want an app with a perfect performance that can function both online and offline. If an outstanding and user-friendly design matters to you and you would like to accept some degree of low responsiveness. If you want your app to have access to hardware and resources of your device. If you want your app to have various cool functions. Honestly, we can provide a lot of various “if” examples why Native app development is beautiful. All of them we learned from our own experience when building beautiful apps.

Web and Mobile Development for Chinese Market: PYRO Music Case Study

The goal of our company is to fulfill the dreams of our clients. Do you have a promising idea but don’t where to start? Tell us about it and we’ll build it together. Let’s change the world for the better!

Hybrid Apps Vs Native Apps. The Best Decision For Your Business was originally published in JetRuby on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.