ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF
HYBRID APPS
To know about the advantages and disadvantages of Hybrid apps, we should first know what are hybrid applications and what role do they have in our day to day life.
With the growing market of smartphone devices, most of the organizations are adopting ways to incorporate mobile apps in their business flow, in order to enhance their market outreach. The choice of mobile apps depends on business needs and user expectations. While web-based and native apps have several benefits, hybrid mobile applications have garnered popularity. It is because of their adaptability across various platforms. A hybrid application is actually a combination of Native applications and web applications and these applications are built with HTML, JavaScript or CSS- Hybrid codes are written in these languages and then these are compiled into native iOS, Android or other mobile platform using wrapper technologies such as PhoneGap or Cordova.
As we know these applications are easily deployed in multiple platforms but also they are usually a cheaper and faster solution. Hybrid applications presently seems to be very attractive to business men, various corporates and entrepreneurs. The reason being it is low cost and fastest process followed by time consumption and the convenience to run it on any platform or device.
There is always a confusion though around which application to choose, what will be the right application type which would work profitably for the business and future. Hence before deciding, an organization take into account a number of factors which will bring full satisfaction and will give expected business results. Some of those factors include user target group, user access to the application, frequently update procedure of application, level of complexity, kind of experience that the organization wishes to offer to there user or customers.
Keeping in mind some of these following points we can now compare the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid applications and how it justifies expectations of both the entrepreneurs or the organization and users. Starting with the advantages of hybrids applications, we know it is cost effective and faster and it can combine the best and the worst element of both native and web applications. Whatever approach you choose should be quick, responsive, and reliable as users now days are demanding more from mobile experiences, it’s important to keep up with their changing demands. Adding more to the effective uses of hybrid applications following points justify the need and efficient use of this application.
- The hybrid application gives consistent user experience across IOS and Android platforms and they don’t need a web browser like other web applications.
- One of the main advantages is as we know that it saves time and energy, it is easier and faster than any other native application. The development team though requires the knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, CSS and so once the coding is done the application can be run in both IOS and android which is a beneficial point for any company or any organization.
- Moving forward with another advantage of this mobile application is that it is very easy to maintain. Comparing with native applications the development team always need new versions with each and every update and also users need to update their application with every new version when released but hybrid applications do versioning itself and makes application maintenance as simple as updating a web page.
- Mobile applications generally suffer from limitation of lack of offline support and it becomes a challenge for the company or an organisation to cater customers from rural areas and areas or places where there is less or no internet connectivity whereas hybrid apps have advantage of offline accessibility which helps companies and other organisations to overcome this challenge.
- Hybrids applications have high speed and are sometime even more progressive and responsive comparatively to native applications for the reason being that they don’t depend upon network communication. Also hybrid applications have proved in the market with their high speed and performance standards with some of the most popular brands like Twitter and LinkedIn.
Therefore, Hybrid application is very essential for a business to create a competitive edge and with the expertise and experience in developing multi-platform mobile applications.
Also like any other technologies, there are some limitations with hybrid applications as well.
- With hybrid app development, you’re dependent on a third-party for applications and codes.
- There is a limit to user interference.
- There is also a slower process of transmission between the pages and sometimes there is a dependency on the browser and its speed.
- The more customization this application requires and for hybrid development, which costs more money that can be saved with native app development.
- Also, their performance is a disadvantage because hybrid apps load in a webview. Often user experience is sacrificed with a hybrid app as you cannot customize the app based on various platforms.
- Hybrid apps do not have the entire features available in native apps as there are some native features that work only with a specific platform.
- The performance, effectiveness, and efficiency of this hybrid application is bit slower and less polished than native apps, therefore running a high-performance app becomes frustrating for the end-users and organizations and various companies won’t end up with this user experience.
If you have an app that is quite simple to use you can easily go for hybrid mobile app development but if your application has lots of functionality, then you must select the native app. With large room for growth, and for business and easy application, hybrid apps are the better choice for the future.
Hybrid apps seem to be an alluring option, being quicker and easier to develop. Using a hybrid development approach, you will be saving a lot of time and money, while offering a great experience to the user and even many web development company prefer to go with this approach than any other.
To conclude we would say that, it will always be contradictable of what is the best for the business and for an organisation to give the best and less complex experience to their users but with the growing and emerging technology there is always an easy, best and efficient ways to provide the best experience with less cost and more profit. When developing an app generally business owners often get confused with the selection. To make the process easy, it is required to start with a web platform and the framework around it. It is very important to focus on both aspects to deliver an app with top efficient user experience.
