Whenever a business decides to develop a mobile application, it is to improve its profits, fortune, and reputation. It is but obvious that any business would do all in its power towards attaining this goal, while coming up with the mobile app most suited to its benefit.

Herein comes the tough decision-time: Native or Hybrid?

Let us know all we need to about this, once and for all.

A to-the-point review on Native and Hybrid Apps, first.

Native Apps:

Native Apps are native to the OS of the user.

Such applications, structured for particular platforms, are written in languages acceptable to those platforms. For illustration, iOS apps may have Swift or Objective-C as language, whereas Android apps can respond to Java, or Kotlin.

Pros of Native Apps

• They give the best performance
• Are fast, and responsive
• Provide a great User Experience
• Are distributed in app stores
• Present Intuitive user input and output
• Have the highest security

Cons of Native Apps

• They are not suitable for apps that are very simple
• They are a lot more costly to develop when compared to other options
• They require extremely experienced developers
• They can take a prolonged period of time to develop
• Users need to update the app to see changes, if any

Hybrid Apps:

In essence, Hybrid Apps are websites within a Native wrapper.

Hybrid Apps are a combination of Web Apps and Native Apps. Hybrid Apps have two basic parts: A back-end code, and a native shell. The native shell can be downloaded. With the help of a webview, the native shell can load the code.

Pros of Hybrid Apps

• They are a lot less costly than Native Apps
• They are a lot faster to develop than a Native App
• All platforms can be compatible with this kind of an app
• They can leverage device APIs
• They do not need a browser
• No need for the user to update the app in the app store

Cons of Hybrid Apps

• They are a lot slower than Native Apps
• They cost more than Web Apps
• Bug fixing can be difficult in their case
• They are not customizable to individual platforms

Post this basic recap on the pros and cons of Native and Hybrid Apps, let us list what you need to consider before going for one of them:

• NOONE wants to pay for a bad User Experience.
• Performance of an app is a very important factor for more than 80% of users.
• Not more than 79% of customers would be likely to give a mobile app a second/third try, in case it does not perform satisfactorily at first.
• Not even 20% of users would be inclined to allow a mobile app more than a couple of chances to perform as expected
• More than 90% of the users can have a negative reaction to an app if it does not perform to their expectation or satisfaction. They may give it a bad rating in the app store / switch to a rival company’s app / both.
• The first chance, in all probability, may be the ONLY chance your app will ever get for winning customers over – and it might also get to stand no chance, otherwise.

Decide accordingly.

Ask yourself:

• Are you basically interested in just getting the app into the market and having it running as soon as possible – and ready to make major compromises for that if necessary -- or can you grant it the time, efforts, and expertise to develop to perfection, first?
• How important does your company consider the performance of your mobile app?
• How complex would the features of your app have to be for it to work?
• Must your app work on both iOS and Android platforms – immediately? Or would it be fine if it worked well on either of the two platforms, first, before you looked at the other platform as well?

Remind yourself:

• Your mobile app has to be an extension of your brand, and not a replication of your website
• The API infrastructure that you have should be one that has an easy, and a reliable access to the services and content that you present
• It is a requirement that you have an updated understanding of your users’ expectations; and you adapt as per the changing market demands

ONLY Case/s WHEN You Can Think of Going for a Hybrid App:

• There is less than four months’ time for you for developing an app
• You need to check the viability of your app first on a limited, and private market
• You have certain very strong reasons for choosing nothing but a Hybrid App
• Cross-compatible web technologies MUST be had
• Your app HAS to have a single source code
• You have to develop an app on a very limited budget – at least, in the initial stages.

ALWAYS opt for a Native App, otherwise.
WHY

We have already listed the virtues of Native Apps. Moreover, you need to pay heed to:

• A Mobile User’s Psychology: Once a user learns to use a mobile device, going through a certain learning process that often has its own share of frustrations and moments of uncertainty, worry, and ignorance, s/he does not want to learn – again! – features that are related to other apps that s/he might have downloaded. Users, instead, prefer to keep using their phones in the manner in which they expect all the apps on their phones to operate – from the point of view of interaction, and navigation. The application’s visual cues, gestures (in case you are on Android), interactions, and controls, therefore, have to have seamless integration with the extensive style guide of your platform.
• A Company’s Psychology: A company, ideally, thinks about how to have a user accomplish a task without letting him/her think, for once, that s/he is in a new app.

Still a bit uncertain about what kind of a mobile app you ought to opt for?
Either way, we, at Ascentspark, can offer you a solution that would be customized, solely, for the betterment of your business.
Feel most welcome to contact us anytime for a complimentary consultation on Native Apps and Hybrid Apps, to understand which one would be the perfect choice for you, taking into consideration your business requirements, timelines, developer skills, app requirements, and all the other factors important and unique to you.