Choose Hybrid Apps to Save on Mobile Development Cost

The popularity of hybrid apps has risen manifold in the last few years, thanks to costing, coding and frameworks advantages they have over native apps.  According to a 2017 Ionic Developer Survey, hybrid app development has fast been taking over the native app development with about 32.7 percent of developers showing their readiness to move to a hybrid approach. Further, the survey also highlighted a massive 700 percent drop in developers building apps with native tools.

Similar to native apps, hybrid apps can also be downloaded from an app store, and access popular native features such as GPS, camera, contacts, accelerometer, and sensors with the help of Cordova plugins. Technically, native apps demand platform-specific languages like Java, Objective-C, and Swift, while hybrids utilize web technologies such as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS and are wrapped in Cordova/PhoneGap frameworks – the core tools for hybrid app development.  Therefore, in hybrid approach developers can use their existing web skill set whereas they must learn a new set of skills to build native apps.

So what makes hybrid apps so cost-effective? Here lies the answer.

Single Codebase

The development cost of native mobile apps is significantly higher in comparison to hybrid apps, as developers need to learn a different set of skills to build native apps for different platforms. In contrast, developers with the skill set of HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript can build a feature-rich hybrid app for all platforms – Android, iOS, and Windows. Due to lower development cost, hybrids apps are getting more popular with startups and SMEs,

Fast to Build and Deploy

The ever-growing competition in the market is prompting businesses to hit the market as soon as possible, and hybrid apps can be the right choice in this scenario. As a hybrid approach requires a single codebase for all platforms, it substantially saves time and effort, thus lowering the delivery time.

Design and Coding

Hybrid apps are platform independent and need to be written only once. As a single code base works perfectly for iOS, Android and Windows platforms, this approach significantly saves the development time, and thus cost of the product. Besides, bugs in native apps need to be fixed separately for both Android and iOS, whereas in hybrid apps it can be fixed together.

Frameworks Advantage

Developers can choose from four frameworks- PhoneGap, Ionic, React Native, and Xamarin – when deciding to build hybrid apps. PhoneGap is the most used cross-platform used in hybrid app development. It’s an open-source framework that allows developers utilize their existing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills to create hybrid apps for multiple platforms with a single codebase. Developers can integrate functionalities like GPS, accelerometer, camera, file system and more by installing Cordova plug-ins. Besides, it is also possible to create customized plugins to suit specific needs.

Ionic is another popular web UI framework that utilizes HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build feature-rich apps. Developers can swiftly incorporate brilliant features like GPS, dialer support, accelerometer, and push notifications just by installing compatible plugins, which are available in plenty.  React Native, another JavaScript based framework uses native components instead of web components. Moreover, Xamarin framework by Microsoft is written in C# and .NET and can be used to build excellent hybrid apps with a look and feel of a native app.

Conclusion

For startups and small businesses, going for hybrid apps can be a wise decision, as they are less expensive and mostly have a native look and feel. Besides, a hybrid approach can be developed and deployed in a much shorter period than native apps.

Still confused which type of app can best deliver for your company? Share your concerns and doubts with us and we’ll be happy to guide you.

By | September 26th, 2018|Categories: Android, Cross, iOS, Mobile App Development|0 Comments