Which is better?
Which should you use?
Web apps 🌐: Web apps are basically website designed specifically for mobile/tablet devices. They're automatically designed to scale to show the correct format.
Examples: Java, Ruby,TypeScript
How do web apps work?
Here when the user goes to the website (The web app). The mobile device requests the server for the corresponding website.
The server then returns with the mobile optimized website.
Pros of web apps:
*-* They can be developed incredibly quickly. 💨
- They're built on one codebase so the app can run on any device with access to the internet 🌐
Cons of web apps: - You NEED an internet connection for the web app to work. 🪢
- The web app can run extremely slowly due broadband connections and the amount of external APIs being used under the hood. 🐌
Native app 🍏:
A native app is an application written in the native language of an operating system. For example, an app built in Java or Kotlin would run on an Android device and an app built in Swift or Objective-C are downloaded from the Apple app store.
How do native apps work? Developers create these apps using the source code for both the iOS and Android version of the app. Once the app has been completely built, they're then shipped into the Apple app store and Google Playstore .
Pros of Native apps 👍:
- Native apps run excellently as their running on their native devices ⚡️
- Full accessibility to all functionalities of the device (i.e notifications, camera, location services etc) ✅
Cons of Native apps👎:
- Developing a native app takes a much longer time compared to hybrid or web apps.🕐
- Separate code bases are required for different devices, this add time to the development process and potentially to the budget too 💰
Hybrid apps 🧬: A hybrid app is a combination of a native and a mobile website.
Hybrid app usually have a structure relating to a native language but also has mobile site embedded into the app. Examples of these are like general conditions and T&Cs on apps.
How do hybrid apps work?
Hybrid apps mainly use web pages and the most commonly used languages are React Native, Flutter and Xamarin.🦎
**Pros of hybrid apps 🍀:
-** Quick development times, as one codebase can run on multiple devices the need for multiple codebases is removed 2️⃣x
- Efficiency, developers can choose to develop the main pages of a mobile app natively and implement the additional pages as web pages. ⚙️
Cons of hybrid apps:
- Longer waiting times, as hybrid app rely on multiple components like a WebViews and bridges to communicate between the web content. It increases the workload done under the hood of an app.⏳
- Debugging is a much harder process as there are multiple layers involved (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, native code, etc.). 🐛
**So what should you pick?
It depends on your project constraints.
**Do you need to build your app as soon as possible to run on multiple devices?
A Web app is probably your choice.🌐
However do you need an app that possesses built in functionalities like notification and location services as-well as having a lightning quick app?
A native app is looking like the best choice 📱.
But if you need a balance between development speed and performance, and you want to reuse code across different platforms, a hybrid app might be the optimal solution. 🧬