Native vs cross-platform vs hybrid: why it is important to develop an app for business

Running the business, it is important to constantly expand it and make significant boosts at each stage or quarter. 70% of users prefer to open sites via their phone, and download apps on mobile, tabs, etc. And there is nothing to be surprised about, as after the world pandemic, people become more demanding and prefer fast services instead of using PC or web pages.

So here we are, talking about mobile app development. In 2024 this issue become even more popular, as far as new app dev processes appeared. But what is really better for your business? We are here to help you and give the most essential information on all the differences, pros, and cons of creating your own mobile app with a low budget.

Does a mobile app really important?

The answer is yes, and let’s discuss the main benefits and crucial facts:

• It enables you to directly interact with your customers in fresh and inventive methods.
• Stronger brand awareness, and loyalty schemes within your app.
• Enhancing contentment levels and stimulating participation. Live chat in the app is the top preference for shoppers aged 18 to 49 when it comes to service selection.
• Effortless promotion of your advertising by sending push notifications, exclusive offers, or promotional messages to users, at your discretion.
• By using mobile apps, customers can conveniently access your platform by simply opening your app on their mobile devices. This makes the purchase process significantly smoother and hassle-free.

And let’s not forget the fact, that people more often use mobile versions than PC these days. So give them all the comfort of use and fast services!

What is a hybrid app type

Today we have three main types of app development. Native, cross-platform, and hybrid. With native mobile development, you can construct apps for a specific operating system, such as Android or iOS. In contrast, cross-platform mobile development enables you to create apps that can serve multiple operating systems.

Let’s proceed to a hybrid one. The hybrid type makes app development as easy as never before. The most important issue here is that this type of development requires a single code for every platform and does not require a big team to be created. There will be no struggle finding the best app dev command, the wallet will be saved, and the quality is quite high. Are there any pitfalls? Let’s find out why the hybrid model of development is so popular and what are the benefits of choosing this way.

Benefits of hybrid app

No waste of time, let’s find out the main benefits of using hybrid app development:

1. Budget economy. The unique code you need for all platforms, like Windows, IOS, and web with the help of one development team. As we told you before, you do not need to hire different teams to create a new app from scratch. One team, one code — all the platforms.
2. Speed of app development. Since you need just one code for each platform, you do not need to require two different teams of specialists. Instead of two developers for iOS and Windows, for example, you can hire two flutter professionals, who will deal with code creation even faster than 7–12 months.
3. Easy to maintain. One more time, as it is based on one code, it is much easier to manage. Since it is made with HTML code, it is much easier to maintain than any other app development.
4. Offline availability. The hybrid app can store data locally, which means they can download an app with previous data downloaded. It makes this development useful while travelling and with constant offline availability.
5. Faster performance. As hybrid apps are lightweight, it makes them faster to download, with better performance.
6. Speed of testing. Finding a bug in the iOS version means a bug in the Android version as usual. So that can make that app testing much faster and more comfortable.

And one more pleasant advantage of using a hybrid type of development is easy to update ability. For each app, it is very important to constantly update them. The hybrid type makes it faster and easy, making users more satisfied.

Difference between native vs cross-platform vs hybrid

However, native apps typically perform better than hybrids because they have been specifically optimized for their target platform. If you only need to develop for one platform, or performance is a key factor for your app, you’ll probably want to develop a native app. However, let’s see the main differences between these three types:

• Native mobile applications are built using platform-specific programming languages and tools, such as Swift or Objective-C for iOS and Java or Kotlin for Android. These apps are designed specifically for a particular operating system and offer the best performance, functionality, and user experience, but require separate development efforts for each platform.
• Cross-platform applications are developed using a single codebase that can be deployed across multiple platforms. Developers can write code once and then use tools like React Native, Xamarin, or Flutter to build apps for both iOS and Android. While cross-platform apps can save time and money by reducing the need for platform-specific development, they may not offer the same level of performance or functionality as native apps.
• Hybrid apps are a combination of native and web applications, built using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They are developed using tools like Apache Cordova or PhoneGap, which wrap the web app in a native container, allowing it to be deployed as a native app. Hybrid apps can offer a balance between the development time and cost savings of a cross-platform approach with the functionality of native apps. However, they may also suffer from performance issues or limitations in certain areas.

The last piece of advice here is to choose a development type based on your business needs. Sometimes it is worth investing more, to get a well-done result.

How to develop app for businesses with a limited budget

Have you chosen the hybrid app dev type for your business? Congratulations! Let’s proceed to the most common platforms and frameworks to be used to create hybrid apps. Here are 6 of the most common framework for your app:

• React Native. An open Java-script framework that makes it possible to create multi-platform user interface components. Views are inherent constituents that interact with JavaScript-based logic via a bridge. The code runs on a JavaScript thread.
• Flutter. Despite being a relatively new framework, it has gained widespread acceptance among developers, primarily due to its rapid development pace and the capability to incorporate a diverse range of widgets, some of which implement Google’s Material Design principles.
• Apache Cordova. The apps created using Apache Cordova execute within the native application wrapper, specifically in the WebView.
• Ionic. Ionic is a well-known framework that leverages HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to generate hybrid mobile applications.
• Xamarin. Xamarin is a Microsoft framework that employs the .NET framework and C# programming language for mobile app development. It enables the creation of apps and access to native APIs for iOS, Android, and Windows platforms.
• Unity. While Unity can be categorized as a hybrid application framework, its primary purpose is the creation of graphically intricate forms of entertainment, like games and VR/AR experiences. C# is the programming language used in Unity.

So, how to develop app for a business with a small budget?

Choosing a platform or a framework for your future app is great, but we advise you to lean on an app development team for this. Some freelancers can overcharge at the end of the project. So we kindly recommend working with an agency or company, to discuss all the budget forehead.

In UNITEDCODE we offer a wide range of app developers, who can create an ideal app for your business with a low budget and fast time. On our site page, you can easily calculate the price for your app project and discover all the benefits of working with the agency.