A Native App or A Hybrid App: Which One Will Be the Best Choice Shortly?

What will be in demand in the near future, a native app or a hybrid app? Originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

There are some peculiarities of the native and hybrid app development which make them both be of high demand. The things are not likely to change in the near future.

Native App Development

This type of development is still on the top as the platform feature set is permanently updated which makes hybrid development harder. The advantages of native over hybrid mobile applications are better performance and UX. They are important for highly interactive apps with a lot of graphics and animation, or if content must be quickly refreshed. It comes to games, some types of social networks, augmented reality apps, etc. If you need some exclusive features, hybrid development may require additional efforts and consultation of platform language developers to develop them from scratch. This is when the native app is more appropriate.

Hybrid App Development

Hybrids occurred with the purpose to fasten the development process. The overwhelming usage of cross-platforms is restricted only with the mobile platforms guides that designate their design and OS updates. The great benefit is that this kind of development is cheaper and faster to launch to the market. A well-built hybrid has no visual or functional difference in use. Who cares how it is developed when it is good in use? Hybrids suit best for startup projects that need a fast prototyping. In case you have a brand-new idea but not sure if it can prove itself on the market, there is no sense to make an expensive native app. You can begin with hybrid MVP, test your concept and then keep developing either way: go on with a hybrid or migrate to a native.

When it comes to mobile app development, there is no correct answer which to decide on: native or hybrid. Either way, you will have to settle for a compromise. Better UX and performance, on the one hand; and more rapid and cheaper development, on the other hand. The decision must be based on your circumstances, requirements, skills of developers, and budget.

Ask yourself the following 6 questions one more time before you make the final decision:

• Does native UX matter for you?
• Is time to market crucial to you?
• Do you want many unique features for your app?
• Is your budget very tight?
• Are you going to have a highly interactive application where performance is valuable?
• Are you going to start with MVP?

If you answered “Yes” to 1, 3, 5, go for Native.

If you answered “Yes” to 2, 4, 6 – give preference to Hybrids!

Contributed by Daria Bulatovych, Marketing Manager at ISDDesign (2017-present)