Native Vs. Cross-Platform App Development: Which Should You Choose?

Choosing a mobile app development company and the app development method can be difficult. You need to make sure that the cross-platform app development firm you choose or the native app development services your choose, provides the tools you need to build the app you want and deliver a great user experience. The choice of technology will most likely depend on your experience in creating mobile applications and the recommendations of the experts of an application development company.     

Cross-platform app development

The latest cross-platform frameworks provide all the tools you need to develop applications with a native user interface. With a powerful cross-platform app development firm offering tools like Xamarin, React Native, and Flutter, you can build apps with a 90% reusable codebase that uses native user interface and controls, access to smartphone features, and follows the lines for human interface and material design. Cross-platform developers build a unified API that runs on their own SDK, uses their own IDEs, and builds iOS and Android apps using the same code.     

Instead of building separate apps for iOS and Android, mobile engineers can share some or all of the source code across multiple platforms. The “write once, run anywhere” approach allows developers to use the same code across multiple platforms, significantly reducing development costs and time compared to native applications. Because cross-platform applications are designed to run on multiple platforms using the same code, your developers will be able to work faster than native applications. In a cross-platform application, the same code works for both Android and iOS, so your developers only need to create one version to make it work for all platforms.     

In other words, instead of developing two separate codebases for Android and iOS, you only need one. Simply put, iOS and Android apps will be built separately, as the former requires Java or Kotlin, while the latter development project requires Swift and Objective-C.

Native platform app development

The question then becomes whether you need to develop separate native applications for the most popular platforms, or whether you need to use a cross-platform development environment to create a single application. Because these are platform-specific applications, application developers will need specific tools to create their own applications for their respective operating systems. For example, developers will use AppCode, Xcode, or Atom to create an iOS app, but they should use Android Studio to create an Android app. 

For example, you can develop your own Android app using Java or Kotlin and choose Swift and Objective-C for iOS apps. For example, you can create an app to be deployed to Android and iOS platforms without using the platform as your native programming language. That is, you just need to create an application that can then be run on different app store platforms. For example, developers can use their own APIs to tell the application to run UI code on a separate processor thread, allowing fast loading. 

Using different programming languages ​​to create native apps for Android and iOS requires hiring two different app development teams for development and maintenance, which will directly impact development costs.     

When developing native applications, developers rely on the native programming language of the operating system to create applications that adapt to a specific platform, whether it be a desktop computer, Smart TV, smartphone, or any other advanced gadget used in the digital space. As the name suggests, native apps are developed exclusively for one platform such as iOS, Android, or Windows. Since native apps are explicitly built using native technologies suitable for operating platforms, they are best known for their superior performance. Native apps are more intuitive and interactive and have minimal error coverage, maximum performance, and enhanced security. In contrast, hybrid apps offer quick time to market minimal costs supported by the ease of development and offline support. 

Hybrid apps 

Hybrid apps combine the benefits of web apps and native apps while delivering a flawless and enhanced user experience across all Android and iOS platforms. Native apps have a smooth experience and an exceptional user experience, essential features for staying at the forefront of today’s competitive market. Android native app development services allow you to easily discover next-generation smartphone features such as memory management, wireless networking, hotspots, etc. to optimize service delivery and ultimately improve overall app performance.    

Recent advances in this area have allowed developers to create apps that can also run smoothly on iOS, Android, and other platforms. Since developers write their own device code, they can often make better use of the built-in features of these platforms. Since native app developers have access to the full platform-specific user interface, developers know exactly which user interface approaches are familiar to users of a particular operating system and implement them accordingly. Because native apps are built for a specific platform, these apps are responsive and relatively fast.

With less effort and fewer resources, developers can help you create an app that gives you native apps and is ideal when you need an app that satisfies your target audience across multiple platforms at the same time.    

Which platform should one choose?

When it comes to deciding which approach to take to build an application, it’s important to understand the purpose of the software you want to build, the resources you can commit to the project, and the target audience. The purpose of the app you want to develop, the tools you have to work with, and the target demographic must be understood before choosing a strategy to use when developing an app.    

When considering hybrid or native app development services, a hybrid approach is appropriate for an app that needs to be developed quickly but won’t have a long lifespan, such as a pilot app or a marketing campaign. On the other hand, the native approach requires long and repetitive development life cycles to create versions of the application for different platforms.     

By simplifying application development for multiple platforms, this approach can provide significant cost and time savings, as well as improved ROI. Some cross-platform development environments, such as Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile, offer the benefits of building both cross-platform and native applications and remove the limitations typically associated with cross-platform solutions.     

Using Google Android, Apple iOS, and other system tools, including software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs), developers can accurately code applications to run on a specific platform. Native development is platform-dependent (Android, iOS, or Windows).

Stark is a mobile application development company that provides all of these services. Our testimonials keep us ahead as the best cross-platform app development firm in the present day.