Development of hybrid or native mobile applications

Given the rise of mobile applications, it is possible that we have once thought as programmers to develop an application of this type. Beyond having a great idea to help us invent the new WhatsApp, when we consider its development, the way in which we will bring our idea to fruition comes to mind. It is also possible that it is a company that has hired us to develop it and the only thing we have are the specifications that the project must meet. Either way, we find ourselves before us with a conceptual proposal that we must finally transform into a mobile application.

Once we start analyzing the project and designing it, we have to address a crucial decision that will mark the development of the application: should we develop a hybrid or native app? To answer the question there are a series of factors that we must take into account, such as the time we have for development, the budget that will cover the project, the training that the team that will program the application has if it is not us alone and the final result that we want to obtain both in terms of user interface and performance, the latter point closely linked to our final decision.

developmental differences

There are several issues to take into account when considering the development of mobile applications, whether hybrid or native. The first determining factor is the destination platform or platforms of our application: if we want our application to be available for Android, iOS or both, since today it does not make sense to consider other options due to market share. At first, we might all think that it is normal to develop for both platforms, but on many occasions when we develop at a business level, the target audience will use a specific type of device.

Let us think, for example, of applications for the control of fleets of delivery men, in applications for waiters in a restaurant or applications for commercials of a certain company. In these cases, as in many others, the application will probably be installed on devices that will be distributed by the company itself and that will all be of the same type, normally mid-low range Android, so perhaps considering hybrid development would not make as much sense as when someone wants to do cross-platform development. That said, we are now going to focus on those developments where we really do want to implement a solution for both Android and iOS, since this is the point at which the question of evaluating between a hybrid or native solution makes sense.

There are several issues to take into account when considering the development of mobile applications, whether hybrid or native.

As a fundamental idea, we must think that the main difference between both types of solutions will reside in the number of applications that we must implement. In the case of hybrid mobile apps it will be only one, since the core of the program will be developed with languages ​​of a web nature (essentially HTML5 and CSS), while if we want native applications we will have to develop an application for both Android, in Java or Kotlin language, and another for iOS devices, in Swift or Objective-C language. Obviously, if the decision were only between having to develop a single application or two to obtain a solution to our project, it seems obvious that we would all opt for the first option. We will see that not everything is as simple as it seems when we see the characteristics of both types.

native solution

When developing a native application we have a series of features that outperform their hybrid alternative and that we must take into account:

· The first, as fundamental as it is, would be the best use of the sensors and functions integrated in the devices. Aspects such as camera, presence, movement or light sensors among others, GPS or positioning are some of the facets where a native application improves on a hybrid solution. Although, more and more, in hybrid mobile applications we have libraries for managing sensors, many times we depend on third-party libraries that have to be maintained and this adds one more concern to the project. In native mobile applications there is no such dependency as the libraries come integrated with the system, and Google and Apple are in charge of setting the trend and implementing it, with the consequent time lag until they are adapted by the native solution.

· The performance is higher in native mobile apps. This is because there is no “conversion” phase to native code. They work with the platform’s own user interface and the use of these components makes them faster than those used in web technologies. Although it is true that in applications where a very high speed is not required and that every day the devices are better, it is a factor to take into account if we need extreme fluidity when it comes to seeing our application in operation.

· The platform’s own security is greater in native mobile applications since they provide libraries to implement the new security layers that applications bring out with each version, such as individual acceptance of permissions or that this occurs at the time of use .

hybrid solution

Let us now analyze the advantages that we can obtain with a hybrid solution:

· A single code. This is the true “core” of this solution, we will have a single development, so the effort and time to obtain the final result will be much faster, and we can also have a single application to maintain and evolve. This, which is easy to say, is often the most important decision-making factor of all.

· The development team only needs to know one technology, and it is also related to web languages ​​(HTML, CSS and JavaScript), so finding staff to carry out a project is relatively simpler than finding Swift or Kotlin programmers.

What decision to make?

At this point, we have seen that the answer to this question can perfectly well be “it depends”. If we want an app that is very fluid, based mainly on sensors and with a very high level of security, or we are considering developing a game with 3D animation, the native solution should be our choice. If this is not the case, we must seriously consider that the hybrid solution may be the answer we need, even more so if we can easily extend said solution to a web page. What we should not do is think that our work ends in the implemented mobile solution, since this could only be considered the front-end of our project, but there are other aspects such as the back-end or the database that must be assessed at the same time. time to develop the complete project. But that is for an analysis in another article.