Anyone who has a plan of developing an app for their business will inevitably have to answer the question: which type of mobile app should choose?
In the day-to-day, we use so many applications on our devices for different types of purposes. In general, we categorize these apps into three different types like native, hybrid, and web. Going through this blog content will help you to understand and differentiate these apps.
Types Of Mobile Application
Native Apps: It is created particularly for one platform or mobile device’s operating system. Thus, you can have native iOS or native Android mobile apps, not to mention other platforms and devices. Because they are developed particularly for one platform, you cannot mix and match. Hence they are “native” for a specific platform or device. Apps developed for systems like Blackberry, Symbian, Android, and Windows Phone cannot be used on a platform other than their own. For example, you cannot use the Android app on the iPhone. Native apps deliver high performance and it offers access to a variety of APIs that puts no limitation on app usage. These types of apps are available in the app store and they are coded using several programming languages including Java, Swift, C++, React, Kotlin, and Python.
Pros:
It offers higher responsiveness and performance
It is a highly reliable and platform-specific UI implementation
Cons:
It is a little complex in nature and demands some professional help and support.
The cost for developing these types of apps is a little bit high.
Hybrid Apps: They are web apps that look and feel more like native apps. They may have a responsive UI, fast performance, home screen app icon, can function offline, but they are web apps developed to resemble native apps. They are created with the help of multi-platform web technologies including JavaScript, ionic, C, CSS, and HTML5. These hybrid apps are fast and easy to develop and it has the advantage and disadvantage of both native and web mobile applications. In simple words, hybrid apps are website applications disguised in a native wrapper. It has a single code base for all platforms which makes the maintenance cost low. It also has poor performance, low speed, and decreased overall optimization when compared to native apps for instance.
Pros:
It is more economical than the native app in terms of development cost.
Due to a single code base, it is much easier to maintain.
They load rapidly and best for usage in countries with slow internet connections.
Cons:
They deliver poor performance
They lack in power and speed
Web Apps: They perform almost similar to native apps but are accessed through a web browser on your device. There is no need of downloading and installing code into your device. They are responsive websites that adapt their UI to the device the user is on. When you click the option to “install” a web app, it simply bookmarks the site URL on your device. These apps are designed using JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, Ruby, and other programming languages used for the web. It needs a minimum of device memory, as a rule.
Pros:
It is web-based, hence is no need of customizing to a particular platform or OS which directly cuts down on development costs.
Cons:
Even if they have an offline mode, they won't work properly on offline mode.
They are dependent on the browser used on the device.
Conclusion
Now you know all the major categories of mobile applications available on the market. Hopefully, this has helped you to find the type your app fits. If you are searching for a way to develop your app, then you can get help from a mobile app development company to develop a great app.
