Are Native Mobile Apps Really Better Than Web Apps?

In general, there is a perception that native mobile applications can be directly downloaded from the Play Store and easily installed on your mobile devices. Therefore, native applications are considered as more user-friendly than web applications, especially in terms of their general features. Moreover, the higher sales figures of native apps also give great evidence for this view.

Are native mobile applications really better than web applications? Let us take a look:

Creation:

When concerning the process of mobile application development, native applications do win hands down. As the native apps are customized for various mobile platforms, the entire coding is usually done by the in-house developers of mobile app development companies. Therefore, finding out bugs and releasing updates, and also monitoring the application analytics are easy and guaranteed.

Speed:

If you buy and install an application from an iPhone or a Blackberry application development company, it automatically becomes a part of your mobile device’s built-in features. Also, launching the applications on compatible handsets generally takes only a few seconds. However, web applications are typically slower as they require strong internet connectivity all the time.

Cost Factor:

From the perspective of professional mobile app developers, the cost of native mobile app development is considerably higher than the cost of web application development. On the other hand, the applications that are compatible across various different platforms can be rather pricey. Also, the time taken to build prototypes of native applications is also higher.

Usability:

According to the professionals from leading Android or iPhone mobile application development company, both web applications and native applications can be user-friendly. However, the native applications seem to have the edge here, as they can be seamlessly integrated with the mobile camera, audio/video recorder, and another handheld device features.

App Store Approval:

Suppose, if a mobile app development company has developed a new mobile application, then the company has to get approval for that application in order to display at the online app stores. Even then, there is no guarantee that the new application would be able to gain the interest of many numbers of users. However, web applications do not require such store approval; hence it is easy for the development company to promote the web applications.

Security:

As mobile applications are tested for their quality and approved by leading app stores, they are completely bug-free and secure. However, no such assurance is available for web applications, even though the popular web applications can be easily trusted.

Requirement of Internal Memory:

Native applications usually require a certain amount of memory space in handsets, especially for functioning in an efficient manner. This is the reason why a great importance is given when selecting a mobile application development framework that never consume too much of memory on mobile phones. Conversely, web applications do not require any extra memory space to be launched and operated.

Monitoring Application Performance:

A mobile app development company that is expertise in native application creation would generally have to build multiple versions of each application, depending on the platform on which it would be used. Also, the analytics for each and every native application must be tracked in order to get an idea about how the application is performing. When concerning about web applications, they generally have only one version that makes performance tracking every easy.

Finding the Necessary Applications:

With the range of web applications available, sometimes it becomes little tricky for users to find the ones that they generally need on their mobile phones. There is no confusion regarding native applications as they are systematically displayed on the Apple Play Store, Android Store and the Blackberry App Store. Choosing and downloading native applications are not very difficult than searching for appropriate web applications.

Maintenance:

Since native mobile applications basically require customized coding for various different platforms, their maintenance seems to be a little more challenging than web applications. As web applications have a cross-platform single coding involved, making changes or modifications is easier. Also, the maintenance cost of web applications is also lower compared to the cost of native applications.

In terms of both performance and quality, the native applications are mostly better than web applications. Also, native applications offer more user-friendly advantages when compared to web applications even though the later have several positive points of their own.