What Are Hybrid Apps? Know How They Work With Their Pros And Cons
Mobile applications are ruling the digital world lately. Almost every business chooses an app to provide a better user experience and reach more audiences with a quality interface and design. A mobile app can be developed in two ways, native and hybrid apps. Native apps are designed for a single platform, while hybrid apps are compatible with more than single platforms.
Every business owns an app as the digital marketplace is on the boom. The demand for Hybrid apps has also increased with it. It helps in reduced costs and shortens the overall time for developing an app. Users often hire app developer UK for smooth app development and quality outcomes.
Hybrid Apps
A hybrid app is a mobile app developed with a single base code and used on various platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows.
To ensure a seamless user experience, native code is used, and users can access the required functionality. When called from a WebView, JavaScript APIs provided by platforms can also be used by hybrid apps.
Hybrid apps can reach their full potential with frameworks like React Native and work like native apps. These apps can be developed accordingly to support enough native features.
There are plenty of applications that are hybrid models and work efficiently. Some of the examples are WhatsApp, Gmail, Instagram, Snapchat, Uber, Twitter, etc.
Hybrid Apps Development and Frameworks
These apps are compatible with multiple platforms because of cross-platform functionality, as these are built with commonly used development languages like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
Hybrid apps can also be optimised to useful native apps by using React Native in the development process. With this, plugins and code features can be used to improve the app’s runtime.
5 Best Hybrid Mobile App Frameworks 2022
Plenty of frameworks can be used to improve the overall performance of the hybrid app or make the transition easy to a native platform.
React Native
It is one of the most used methods that help improve the performance of the apps. React Native was developed by Facebook and used to hybrid-compile code into native code.
Flutter
Flutter uses Dart language for hybrid app development. It helps create a flexible framework with native performance and interpolarity with just-in-time (JIT) compilation.
Xamarin
Microsoft develops this framework for hybrid app development to write the code of an app in C Sharp and dot net technology. Code reusability is one of the biggest advantages of this framework.
Ionic
It uses the webview technique to create a hybrid app. In this framework, web-based code can be interfaced with native API with the help of plugins.
Cordova
It is helpful in creating code for single-page applications. With Apache Cordova, developers can access the native features of an app as per the requirement.
There are several advantages and disadvantages to developing a hybrid app. Here are some of the pros and cons of hybrid apps.
Pros of Hybrid Apps
Here are some of the key benefits of using hybrid apps for any business model:
Cross-platform compatibility
Hybrid apps are compatible with multiple platforms with a single code. Apps built with hybrid methods can run on every platform without making any change in the existing original code.
Shortened development time
As the reusability of code comes in place for both Android and iOS, users can use it properly with ease in a limited time. It saves a lot of time and provides easy options for every platform.
Improved scalability of hybrid App
With the help of a single codebase, scalability is high with hybrid apps. The plugins used in these apps provide support to make cloud integration easy and improve scalability and functionality.
Greater application reach
Apps can reach more users with this approach. App owners get more users as the platform has no boundaries. Developers don’t have to target one set of audiences as apps are available for multiple platforms.
Cost-effective
The code and development are almost half in an app built on a hybrid, making it cost-effective. With similar resources, a cheaper app is built with customisation for more than one platform.
Easy maintenance
With the help of HTML, hybrid apps can be managed easily without facing any issues or functionality with the operating system or any platform.
Cons of Hybrid Apps
Other than several advantages of hybrid apps. there are several factors that affect the performance of the apo. Here are some of the disadvantages of using it for any business model:
Performance issues
The performance of the hybrid app might be slightly slower because of the increased dependencies on the plugin and various other factors. Making an app perform similarly to a native app is not easy.
Irregular UI/UX patterns
The irregularity in UI UX patterns is visible as it is not an easy deal to keep up with the same pattern on more than one platform. When the UI is inconsistent in different places, it can affect the overall appearance of the app.
Inconsistent updating
The hybrid app is not easy to update. Making changes in the code is not easy as it takes longer to make it available for both platforms.
Improper user management
It is tough for app owners to manage users’ data with hybrid app to create strategies for improved performance, which is also not beneficial for ranking in the respective app stores.
Limited add-on features
There are limitations when adding new features to an app. For example, graphic and 3D designs can not be added and kept similar on various platforms.
Browser requirement
An app needs to have a browser to be opened. Users need to find the app from the browser as many of the hybrid apps are not available in the platform app store.
Which App Is Best For Your Business?
You should choose the app based on your business preference after considering both native and hybrid apps. You can easily develop apps with a hybrid if you are just getting started and your audience is from both platforms.
Hybrid apps save time and money. A business can use these apps if it wants instant solutions to go digital with an app. Moreover, a hybrid app from a mobile app development company in UK helps you make the development process easy and assists you in choosing suitable apps for your business model.
