What are native and cross-platform applications. Their pros and cons

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When thinking about mobile development, it is important for companies to define the product’s tasks and goals so that the application is successful and attracts users. This also determines the choice between cross-platform and native development.

This article explains how they differ and how to choose the right approach.

What are Native Mobile Apps
These are applications for a specific OS, written using different development tools and programming languages. Examples include many mobile video games and almost all default standard services such as an alarm clock, calendar, or calculator.

Pros of Native Apps
Flexibility and adaptive UX
Developing a native app allows it to interact faster with mobile device functions: photos, notifications, phone book, geolocation, microphone. Therefore, they have a higher speed, they respond to user actions faster and freeze less. And users can be sure that each control element will be in a standard form in the place where they are used to seeing them. All this makes the user experience more convenient.

Positions in stores
Device integration, high performance, and social media marketing service good user experience are the reasons why native apps often rank higher in search results on the App Store and Google Play than cross-platform apps.

Disadvantages of Native Apps

Large development budget

Programmers will spend more time to develop several versions of the code. And designers will need to adapt the design to the platforms in accordance with the guidelines of each. Therefore, the price and timeline increase.

Availability
Companies always face a choice: create a version for one of the platforms or make several versions of the code so as not to miss out on users with other devices and potential income.

What are cross-platform mobile apps
These are applications that are written in a universal code for all platforms and OS. This approach to development is used to save time and money and get a quality product.

Examples of cross-platform mobile applications developed by aim digital:


Perfluence is a multilingual mobile app for bloggers on Flutter with a convenient personal account, functions for creating posts and electronic signing of acts;
Zeppelin Navigator is an application for salespeople of special equipment with CRM, document generation and an internal corporate portal;
Junk a Car — an application with auction mechanics for selling used cars for recycling.

Advantages of Cross-Platform Applications
Versatility
Cross-platform mobile app development involves creating one code that will be available on all platforms, without the need to write additional code.

Terms and cost
Cross-platform development is cheaper than native development because it requires creating one version of the code. This allows you to avoid involving developers for several platforms, save time, and bring the application to market faster.

Quick updates
All changes in product versions are made simultaneously, there is no need to make them for different versions of each platform. And with cross-platform development, it is cheaper to fix errors and add new functionality.


Availability
Cross-platform applications can be used by people with different devices, regardless of the OS. This allows you to expand the circle of potential customers and users.

Uniformity in design
The development code allows you to maintain a consistent interface design across all platforms. This helps reduce cognitive load because users can open the app on a new device and quickly understand it, and the team does not get confused by different design options.

Disadvantages of cross-platform development
Flexibility
Cross-platform applications solve business problems on all platforms, but often do not allow you to use all the capabilities of these platforms to the maximum. A unified technology stack does not provide the same flexibility of customization and optimization as an individual stack for each OS, so they can work slowly and freeze.

UI limitations
Each system has its own UI design requirements — guidelines that help maintain design and functionality standards. Based on the guidelines, user experience and expectations of appearance and functionality are formed. Sometimes designers have to spend more time to maintain the familiar appearance, layout of interface elements and create a user-friendly design that will fit all platforms.