If you’re a startup business looking to take a product to market or scale your business you might have thought about developing an app. This is an excellent idea, an app can grow your customer base significantly and open up new channels to your product, but what kind of app should you develop, a native app or a hybrid app? Read on to find out more.
What are Native Apps?
The word “native” means someone who is born in a specified place or is associated with that place through birth or culture. This is not so different from the meaning of native when it comes to mobile apps either. A native app is built using a programming language exactly suited to the app platform.
For instance, a native app that’s created for an android device will be written in Java, but if the native app is for an iOS device it will be written in Swift or Objective-C. It simply means that the platform accepts the programming language.
What are Hybrid Apps?
The word “hybrid” means combining two things to create a third thing which pretty much describes the make-up of a hybrid mobile app. Hybrid apps work more like Web apps but they are installed on the mobile platform just like native apps. But hybrid apps differ, they are written with Javascript, HTML, and CSS.
A hybrid app may not work as efficiently as a native app and it may not be the finished product. Still, there are several advantages to using hybrid apps. If you are a startup business and you want to test out a new app product for marketing purposes, using a hybrid app is one way to get the marketing data you need and beta test the product.
What’s the Difference?
Since these two types of apps are written in different programming languages they have different purposes, they also have different integration options depending on the operating platform. Native apps are written in a compatible program language, they offer quick to learn native UI and appear in the app stores.
Hybrid apps are writing in programming languages designed for web applications but enveloped so the function on mobile devices. They typically have a single code base, access to various hardware and software options, and faster speeds to market. This makes them very useful as beta testers and marketing tools.
Which is Better?
The short answer is a native app. Every app aspires to be a native app at some point because native apps have full access to all of the features of the operating system. Some of these features will be blocked on hybrid apps due to programming technicalities, that said, hybrid apps still have a part to play.
Hybrid apps may not provide the full functionality of a native app but they benefit from being faster to create and publish. If you have a startup business and you need a product on the market early then a hybrid app is a way to do it. Your app or product can then be optimized based on user data.
