Native and Cross-platform App Development – All  you need to know as an entrepreneur

You must have felt the confusion on whether the native or cross-platform mobile development is the right choice for launching your app. It is an extremely important decision because choosing anyone has long term implications in terms of time’ cost and functionality. 

Both the platforms are equally popular and each one has its strengths and weaknesses. This article will help you to know the pros and cons of both the platforms and hence to choose the right one for your app.

 

What is Native App Development?

 

Native App Development refers to building an app particularly for a single platform such as iOS, Android or Windows.

Native apps are generally high performance hence giving exceptional user experience. User experience is also enhanced as the visuals are designed to the platform UX. However, startups can be concerned about its high cost as the need to run concurrent development for both platforms.

 

Here are some pros and cons of Native App Development.

Pros of Native App Development 

 

Broad functionality 

The biggest advantage of native app development is its ability to access all the features of the platform it is made for. This results in faster execution providing better user experience. Also native apps are able perform its functions without internet connectivity making it the best solution for complex mobile applications.

 

Better store support

Native apps are easier to be launched in the app store as they comply with Android as well as iOS guidelines. Both Google and Apple prefer Native because they mostly feature native apps on their store.

 

Higher security and reliability

Native apps are better at providing protection from any violations of the security. These apps are programmed using the core language of the platform making it  more secure and reliable. Also, the features like multi-factor authentication and proactive security upgrades ensure the data security and privacy.

Cons of Native App Development 

 

Higher cost

Cost is the biggest drawback of Native Development. Two main reasons can be considered for this high cost, first- as the native app development is complex the professional development and support consume a large share of the project budget. This is the reason native mobile developers are more expensive than those of the cross-platform ones. The second reason is, it requires two distinct native apps in order to cater to two different sets of audiences i.e Android and iOS, it leads to setting up of two development teams resulting in the rise of cost.

 

Difficulties in updates and maintenance

It is challenging to maintain separate builds for separate platforms that require regular maintenance and support. Difficulty can be felt in collaborating with several teams or in rolling out new features or feature updates.

 

Slow development speed

Another drawback for native development is its development speed. Significantly more time is consumed in development of the native app than a cross-platform app. Also, there is no chance to repurpose the native code of one operating system for another which results in much slower development.

 

What is Cross-Platform App Development 

Cross-platform development refers to creating an app that works on several platforms. It is possible with the use of tools like React Native, Xamarin, Flutter, where the apps created can be deployed on both Android as well as iOS.

Cross-platform development is good for saving cost and time, but at  the risk of sacrificing quality and process. It is difficult to design an app that can run on various platforms and the app will need an additional abstraction layer while running,hence resulting in lower performance. 

Startups favor the reduction of time and cost by choosing cross-platform development, however, it is necessary to know that it will be more difficult to customize the app beyond what is allowed in the framework.

Now, let’s look at the pros and cons of cross-platform development.

Pros of Cross-platform App Development

 

Cost-effective

Cross-platform app development enables you to use a single codebase on multiple platforms,resulting in a significant cut in the development cost. Also, this approach allows to deploy only one development team to build a single append distribute it on multiple app stores. 

 

Quick development 

Cross-platform gives an advantage as it allows the developers to reuse almost 50-80  percent  of the original codebase. Reusing the codes instead of writing them from scratch saves a significant amount of time taken for development. As a result it is possible to launch a fully functioning app much faster.

 

Easy app support and maintenance

Regular maintenance and support becomes easy with cross-platform apps. Use of a single codebase enables the team to quickly roll out updates, introduce new features or patches for multiple platforms simultaneously, resulting in a much improved mobile service.

Cons of Cross-platform App Development 

 

Limited functionality

Cross-platform apps fall short when it comes to functionality,as those apps have limited accessibility to the operating system features, no access to the native APIs and can not work without  internet connection. All these factors affect the user experience. 

 

Limited support and third-party libraries

Cross-platform app development is not compatible with all third-party libraries and SDKs (software development kits). This consumes a lot of developer’s productive hours to find out alternatives so that the desired functionality could be integrated in the app.

 

Integration issues

Integration is usually an issue since the cross-platform apps are built on a one-app-fits-all approach. When the app is integrated with local settings, they do not integrate flawlessly  with the target operating system, this results in app failure.

Conclusion

Choosing Native or Cross-platform development is completely situational as both contain some strengths and weaknesses in distinct areas. 

You can choose Native over Cross-platform if you want a reliable app with excellent performance, no budget and time constraint, and targeted to only iOS and Android user base. 

And , cross-platform is preferable if you want to develop apps which focus on a broader user base and are developed in the most cost and time effective way.