Cross-Platform Vs. Native Development: What’s the best path for your mobile app?

Smartphones have been with us for well over a decade, and they have become an inescapable part of our modern society. With them, mobile apps now permeate almost every aspect of our everyday lives and we rely on them to perform all sorts of tasks.

It is often said that there is an app for everything and yet new, innovative apps still manage to break into the market on a regular basis. In fact, the mobile app market is booming and, as a result, there is a myriad of technologies to choose from when it comes to developing a new mobile app.

Before you even choose a technology, though, you should know that mobile development is split into two approaches: native development and cross-platform development. But, what does each approach entail? Is one better than the other? Those are the questions we will try to answer in this article.

What is Native Development?

The native development approach to building mobile apps entails choosing a technology that is native to the operating system (or systems) you want to target.

If you want your native app to run on iOS devices, this means you will have to develop it using one of two languages: Swift or Objective-C. If, on the other hand, you want to build a native app for Android devices, you will have to code it using Java or Kotlin. And, if you want a native app that can run on both platforms… Well, then you will have to code two apps: one in Java or Kotlin and another one in Swift or Objective-C.

In fact, that is one of the main disadvantages of native development: you can’t develop apps natively for different platforms using the same technology. By definition, native development uses technologies that are characteristic to each platform. This means that, if you choose this approach for an app that targets two different platforms, you will have to develop the same app twice, test both apps, maintain both apps and, most likely, hire two sets of experts to handle all this work.

So, it is clear that native development has its pitfalls. Yet, this approach is still very much a popular one. Why is that? The answer, as you might expect, is that there are two sides to every coin. Native development brings its own share of advantages to the table, let’s take a look at some of them:

Better Performance

The first and most notable advantage of native apps is that they communicate directly with the platform’s operating system, meaning they have direct access to its APIs and other features. This makes native apps quicker and more performant. It also allows apps to directly access certain features (such as GPS or phone cameras) leading, once again, to better performance.

Quicker to adapt

Secondly, native apps are much quicker to adapt to changes in their respective platforms. While it can take some time for a cross-platform solution to catch up to a system update, developers working with native languages can adapt to these changes much more quickly, since they are not dealing with a middle-man between them and their preferred platform.

More intuitive UIs

Lastly, native apps use a platform’s UI components directly and, by definition, they are designed with that specific platform in mind. This means that it is much easier for developers to follow each platform’s strict design guidelines and take care of every nuance so that the app’s UI feels just like an extension of its native OS. This is a big advantage for users, since an intuitive UI will be much easier to operate than one that doesn’t feel native.

What is Cross-Platform Development?

For some time, native development was pretty much the only viable way of doing things, and mobile development teams became increasingly specialized in their respective languages.

As we’ve discussed, however, this came at a high cost. As the mobile industry evolved, it became clear that producing apps for only one platform would be less than ideal for most products. But, as we saw, developing natively for two platforms can double the costs and production times. A more cost-effective solution was needed, and this gave way to cross-platform development.

In essence, cross-platform solutions allow developers to code one single app that can run in multiple platforms. This means that a single team can write one app in a given language and maintain that single codebase, but still produce working apps for both Android and iOS. This results in a number of advantages, let’s take a look at some of those:

Faster and cheaper

As we’ve been discussing, the number one advantage of cross-platform development is that it cuts down costs significantly by allowing you to hire just one team that can produce and maintain a single app that will in turn work for all the mainstream mobile platforms. It will also cut down production times, since your team will be working on a single codebase. If you’re on a tight budget or on a fast-approaching deadline, chances are that this alone will be enough to convince you to follow the cross-platform approach.

Easier to manage

As we’ve also mentioned, native development aimed at multiple platforms translates into multiple apps. As these apps start to grow, new features will start being added and bug reports will start to pour in. As a result, managing all these different versions becomes increasingly difficult. If you don’t dedicate a decent amount of resources to version management, you will likely end up with some apps falling behind, leading to disgruntled customers, and one big headache. With cross-platform development, on the other hand, there is just one codebase to work on, so version management becomes much smoother.

Great for MVPS

Finally, cross-platform solutions are great if you want to start by producing an MVP. An MVP, or Minimum Viable Product, is a version of a product with the minimum amount of features to fulfil its core function and get meaningful feedback that you can then improve upon. Cross-platform solutions allow you to quickly produce an MVP at a low cost and put it out to users in all your target platforms so you can receive feedback that will later allow you to grow your app.

All that said, cross-platform solutions are, of course, not perfect. As we mentioned before, they can be slower to adapt to changes in each platforms’ OS, and are usually less performant than native apps.

However, in today’s world where budget and time constraints often dictate decisions, cross-platform solutions are extremely popular. As their popularity grows, some of these technologies have started to catch up with native apps. At the same time, there is an increasing variety of frameworks and libraries to choose from. Let’s take a look at three of the most popular ones.

What are some common Cross-Platform Development frameworks?

Flutter

Introduced by Google in 2017, Flutter is a free and open-source solution that uses Dart as its core programming language. Its use of widgets, which meet the design specifications of both Android and iOS, sets it apart from other frameworks. However, its widget approach can also result in apps that are larger in size, making it something for developers to look out for.

React Native

React Native is Facebook’s entry into the cross-platform app development business. It was introduced in 2015 and uses JavaScript, an extremely popular programming language, to code apps that can run on multiple platforms. The framework is free and open-source and is undoubtedly one of the most popular cross-platform solutions, but it still demands some native knowledge for more complex apps.

Xamarin

Acquired by Microsoft in 2015, this free and open-source solution aims at harnessing the power of C# and the .NET framework and bringing it to mobile development. This makes Xamarin extremely powerful and robust, but, just as with Flutter, it can also make apps larger than others. And, just like React Native, some knowledge of native platforms is often also required.

Native or cross-platform apps: Which should you choose?

We’ve covered the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches and, as you can see, there is unfortunately no silver bullet. The decision on which to choose has to be made on a per-project basis.

If you’re looking to produce a fairly simple app that doesn’t make too extensive or innovative a use of features such as GPS, cameras or microphones, then cross-platform is probably the way to go. It is also the best option if you’re on a tight budget or you have a pressing deadline on the horizon.

If, on the other hand, you are building an app that focuses on performance or makes innovative use of phone features, and you have the time and budget, then native development is definitely the path for you.

No matter which approach you choose to follow, we hope we’ve provided the necessary tools to make the decision easier.