Native apps are better than hybrid apps because they provide features reserved exclusively for the OS(operating system) and their execution time (runtime) and responsiveness (runtime) is superior than hybrid apps. A major advantage of native applications is that they provide the best user experience and performance.
What are Native apps:
Native apps are software programs that are developed for use on a particular platform or device, either iOS or android. Mostly native android apps are written in JAVA language while developers write iOS applications in objective-C or swift. These apps can provide optimized performance.
Examples: Most commonly android native app example is WhatsApp. Lyft, Pokemon Go, Twitter are examples of native apps.
What are Hybrid Apps:
Hybrid apps are combinations of web and native apps. They are installed like a native app and work like a web app. Hybrid applications have access of APIs and they can use resources like storage, GPS, as well as camera also. They are built with J.S, Html, and CSS.
Examples: Marketwatch (lonic built), Tripline (built with framework 7), Sworkit (built with PhoneGap) and many more.
Advantages of Native apps over Hybrid Apps:
- Improve application performance and its look and feels.
- Work directly with technologies created by the operating system using the Xcode and Android Studio environments. For Apple, it also works with hardware. Access to the latest platform updates, extensive documentation, and publications to help resolve
issues. - Native mobile apps run much smoother with respect to user inputs and outputs. These types of apps inherit the device’s operating system interface, and they also improve application performance and look and feel.
- Better external hardware integration and integration of devices.
- Native apps are developed specifically for the platform. Therefore, they are fast and offer good performance. They can be downloaded from various app stores and are not accessible via a browser.
- Better management of 3D content or development of applications with augmented reality, as the performance is crucial in that situation.
- Web apps are based on a variety of browsers and underlying technologies such as JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS. Developing native mobile apps is a great way to ensure reliable data protection for your users.
- If you want to do edge computing so artificial intelligence runs directly on your device instead of in the cloud.
- Opportunity for good design and user experience. For example, the sophisticated UX/UI design and animation implementation. Native app UI allows users to more quickly understand navigation within the app.
Disadvantages of Native apps:
- More than One codebase because for every platform you have to work with different codebases.
- The cost of native app development is more than hybrid apps.
- Time spent on multiple built on different platforms will require separate teams which increases time and cost.
Difference between Native apps and Hybrid apps:
| S.No. |
Native apps |
Hybrid apps |
| 1. | Installation is needed for the Native apps | These apps don’t require installation |
| 2. | These apps are built using JAVA, Objective-C, Swift, Kotlin. | These apps are built using Javascript, HTML, CSS,and languages like JAVA. |
| 3. | Native apps provide the best user experience and performance. | These are slower than native and don’t have a good user experience. |
| 4. | Native apps have multiple codebases and along with this, these applications are developed for one platform | Hybrid apps have a single codebase and these applications can work on various platforms means that they can operate on both iOS and android. |
| 5. | These apps are expensive to build and that will be compatible with multiple (android and iOS) platforms. | These apps are not as much expensive as native ones or we can say they are cost-effective, as they require less time to develop. |
| 6. | Native apps require high maintenance. | Hybrid apps require less maintenance. |
Conclusion: If we talk about comparison between native and web apps, the web apps can use a single codebase and they are fast and simple to build but these are not fast and versatile as native apps. But in hybrid applications they are based on web apps and we can’t operate hybrid application in offline mode but native apps can operate offline.
