The mobile app market is exploding. The number of people that use smartphones has reached up to billions, and thus, apps have become an essential way people interact with content, brands, or manage their day-to-day lives. The global mobile application market, valued at $252.89 billion USD in 2023, is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.3% from 2024 to 2030. For all organizations who want to succeed, ensuring visibility on mobile devices is no longer an afterthought, it is a core necessity for long-term success. But with this surge in app usage comes a critical decision: How can you build your app
Choosing between native and cross-platform development can be a major headache. Which do you choose—native apps built for a specific platform, like iOS or Android, or cross-platform apps using a single codebase for multiple platforms? Making the right choice is of paramount importance as an inefficient application can lead to wastage of resources, unsatisfied users, and missed opportunites.
If this was not enough, the decision becomes even more tricky with the ever-changing landscape of technology. Emerging tools, platforms, and frameworks always bring new changes, making it tricky to be updated always and finding the right approach for your requirements. Businesses sometimes wonder with questions like, “Will my app function seamlessly on all kinds of devices?" “Can users access the newly added features on their ?” and “What is the way to reduce development expenses without compromising on quality?”
In this article, we will take a deeper look at the differences between cross-platform and native apps as well as their advantages and disadvantages, find out important considerations for making the best choice, and discuss real-life examples that can impact your decision. Proceed to read further to enhance your knowledge and get more confidence and clarity in your decision-making.
What is a Cross-platform App?
A cross-platform app operates on multiple operating systems, such as iOS and Android, from a single codebase. Cross-platform app development service maximizes code reusability, reducing development time and costs while maintaining a consistent user experience across different devices and platforms. In the context of native vs cross-platform apps, here are the top 5 pros and cons of cross-platform app development:
Pros of Cross-platform Apps
- Cost Efficiency
Cross-platform development requires writing only one codebase for both iOS and Android, bringing down the overall costs associated with development and maintenance. For example, Shopify used React Native for its mobile app development, enabling cost-efficiency by allowing the company to maintain a single codebase for both iOS and Android platforms, reducing development and maintenance costs. - Faster Time to Market
Cross-platform apps allow businesses to release their apps simultaneously on both platforms, speeding up time to market. The New York Times used cross-platform development to quickly launch their app, ensuring that readers could access their content without delay and reach a broader audience quickly. - Wider Audience Reach
This allows businesses to expand their reach to both Android and iOS users, making their user-base wide and large. By using Flutter to develop eBay’s mobile app, the platform was able to reach a wider audience, offering a seamless experience across both iOS and Android with a single codebase. - Easier Maintenance and Updates
Businesses can make their updates and maintenance a lot smoother, making management of app performance and bug resolution a lot easier. For example, Instagram has utilized cross-platform tools to ensure that new features and fixes are rolled out simultaneously across iOS and Android, guaranteeing a consistent user experience for millions of users. - Flexibility and Scalability
Companies can scale their apps as they grow. Industries like education and entertainment benefit from this flexibility, where adding new features or expanding the app to support additional platforms like tablets or smartwatches is easier without extensive redevelopment.
Cons of Cross-platform Apps
- Performance Issues
Cross-platform apps run on a virtual machine or through an additional abstraction layer, resulting in slower performance than native apps. For apps needing complex calculations, real-time communications, or large-scale data processes, not addressing this lag can adversely affect user experience. This makes the applications less suitable for fields like higher-end gaming or FinTech.
- Limited Access to Native Features
A layer of abstraction can limit access to device-specific features like advanced camera functions or low-level hardware optimizations. For businesses requiring customized functionality, this might require compromises. This is especially true in domains like healthcare and gaming where native characteristics are vital for maintaining high-performance.
- UI/UX Constraints
Cross-platform apps can struggle to match the user interface and experience (UI/UX) of fully native apps, as they often use generic elements. Tesla, a leader in the electric vehicle industry, faced challenges with its app’s responsiveness and the ability to replicate iOS and Android-specific designs perfectly across both platforms, making the app feel less fluid compared to native apps.
- Larger App Size
Cross-platform apps tend to be larger in file size than native apps due to the inclusion of both iOS and Android code in one package. Skype faced challenges with large app sizes, making it more difficult to download, especially in areas with slower internet speeds. This had a negative impact on the user adoption in areas where data efficiency was highly vital.
- Long-term Scalability Issues
Maintaining cross-platform apps may not evolve at the same pace as the native platforms, meaning businesses could face difficulties with scalability or keeping up with new OS releases, hindering future growth and requiring potential redevelopment. Slack initially relied on cross-platform frameworks for its mobile app, but as the app grew in complexity, they encountered issues related to the framework’s limitations in scaling with new features, ultimately leading to a more native approach for certain components.
Main Tools for Cross-platform App Development
Several powerful tools dominate the landscape when it comes to building cross-platform apps. Facebook's React Native enables developers to explore their JavaScript proficiency to create user-friendly and efficient applications for both Android and iOS. Google's Flutter, using the Dart programming language, offers a fast development cycle and visually appealing interfaces.
Kotlin Multiplatform allows code to be shared across platforms while still allowing for native customization when needed. These frameworks provide varying strengths and serve diverse developer expectations. This makes it important to select the one that aligns with the needs of your projects and expertise-level of your team.
What Is a Native App?
A native app is designed and built specifically for a particular operating system, such as iOS or Android, using its core programming languages like Swift for iOS or Kotlin for Android. This approach ensures smooth integration with the specific features of the platform. It ensures personalized experiences for the users tailored to the unique design and functionality of the application. This will then ultimately help the app perform at the best-level on the specific user device. Speaking of native apps vs cross-platform, each comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Here are five major advantages and disadvantages of native apps:
Pros of Native Apps
- Enhanced Performance
Being optimized for specific operating systems, native apps enable faster load times, smoother animations, and a more responsive experience. For example, financial apps with high data processing requirements benefit from native development by achieving seamless interactions for users even during peak times. - Superior User Experience
Designed in line with platform-specific guidelines (like Apple's Human Interface Guidelines or Google’s Material Design), native apps provide an intuitive experience. This adherence to design standards often results in higher user satisfaction, as users can expect familiar navigation and gestures unique to each platform. - Full Access to Device Features
Native apps directly access device hardware and OS capabilities, such as GPS, camera, Bluetooth, and angular velocity sensor gyroscope. Businesses like ride-sharing companies like Uber benefit from optimized real-time location tracking and faster response times. - Greater Security
Applications receive enhanced encryption and multi-factor authentication. Health and banking apps often go native to meet strict regulatory requirements and ensure user data protection.
Cons of Native Apps
- Higher Development Costs
Native apps require separate development for each platform, increasing initial and ongoing development costs. For businesses targeting multiple audiences across platforms, this means managing separate teams or hiring developers with specific expertise, potentially doubling expenses. - Longer Time to Market
The launch timeline can be significantly longer. This approach can delay market entry for startups or businesses aiming to release and validate an MVP quickly, limiting the ability to adapt swiftly to feedback or capitalize on early momentum.
- Increased Maintenance Efforts
Native apps require separate maintenance and updates for each platform, which doubles efforts around bug fixing, security patches, and feature enhancements. This can generate a constant burden for teams having a limited number of resources. It can affect consistency of apps across diverse platforms considering the fact that platforms improve and new OS versions get released every year.
- Limited Code Reusability
Businesses have to spend twice as much effort and resources to build the same feature on multiple platforms, which can slow innovation and increase development hours.
- Limited Market Reach
Developing only for a single platform limits your app's reach to users on that platform. This can be a disadvantage if your target audience spans both iOS and Android users.
Tools for Native App Development
- iOS Development with Xcode: Apple’s Xcode, the integrated development environment for iOS, used with Swift or Objective-C. It utilizes SwiftUI and UIKit, which is aligned with the sophisticated iOS features. Xcode includes a robust set of built-in tools for designing, simulating, testing, and optimizing applications to ensure compatibility across a range of Apple devices.
- Android Development with Android Studio: Android Studio is based on IntelliJ IDEA, using Kotlin and Jetpack for speed-up development and support for modern features. Android Studio consists of in-built tools for designing, emulating, and optimizing applications to cover numerous Android devices.
Cross-platform vs Native App: Which Is Best?
Regarding cross-platform mobile app development vs native, the choice depends heavily on your business needs and priorities. Here's a quick guide to help you make the right decision:
When Native Apps Are Preferable for Businesses
- High-performance Demands
When your app demands top-notch performance, especially for graphics-intensive applications or those requiring complex animations like gaming or video editing. - Complex Device Integration
Best for apps requiring advanced hardware integration, such as healthcare or IoT apps with GPS or sensors. - Robust User Experience
If you prioritize a user interface and experience that closely adheres to platform-specific design conventions. - Long-term Support and Scalability
Suitable for enterprise-level solutions where regular updates, security patches, and long-term stability are key. - Strict Security Standards
Preferred for industries handling sensitive data, such as banking, FinTech, and healthcare, due to better security features. - Long-term Investment
When your app is a core part of your business strategy and requires ongoing maintenance and updates.
- Large Budget and Long Timeline
If you have a larger budget and a more flexible timeline to accommodate separate development for each platform.
When Cross-platform Apps Are Preferable for Businesses
- Limited Budgets
Ideal for startups and small businesses needing to reach both iOS and Android users without the cost of separate development. - Quick Time-to-market
Perfect for industries like e-commerce and media, where rapid deployment on multiple platforms is essential. - Multi-platform Reach
Best for apps targeting a wide user base across iOS and Android, like social networks and news apps. - Minimum Viable Product (MVP): When you need to test your app idea quickly with a smaller initial investment.
- Moderate Performance Needs
Suitable for apps like social media, messaging, and simple business tools where high performance is not a priority. - Simple Functionality
If your app has relatively simple functionality and doesn't require complex integrations or platform-specific features.
- Frequent Updates
Fits businesses requiring quick, simultaneous updates across both platforms, such as apps in retail or content delivery.
It's important to recognize that no one-size-fits-all solution exists. The best approach factors in multiple aspects which includes specific objectives of the business, budget limitations, target chase, and expected functionality of the application. In some cases, a hybrid approach, combining elements of both native and cross-platform development, may be the optimal solution. This approach enables developers to explore the efficiency of the cross-platform frameworks like Flutter or React Native while also incorporating native code to target platform-oriented requirements or improve performance in crucial areas. However, this hybrid approach makes it necessary for the development department to have core expertise in multiple coding languages and SDKs. This further adds a layer of complication in the decision-making aspect.
Conclusion
In the cross-platform vs native app debate, partnering with a skilled software development team remains crucial for building a successful and robust mobile app. Their expertise makes sure that your application is developed with the right architecture and functionalities. This then makes sure that the app is optimized for high security, performance, and user experience. A trustworthy tech partner will enable you to overcome all technical challenges, boosting your chances of achieving your objectives.
