Choosing Between Native and Cross-Platform App Development

Choos­ing how to build an app is an impor­tant deci­sion for any founder, exec­u­tive, or leader dri­ving inno­va­tion. Select­ing the right approach to devel­op tech­nol­o­gy will direct­ly shape your bud­get, user expe­ri­ence, prod­uct time­line, and how quick­ly you can suc­cess­ful­ly launch your app to mar­ket. One of the first ques­tions to ask is whether to build your app using cross-plat­form or native development. 

Cross-plat­form frame­works like React Native and Flut­ter have been clos­ing the per­for­mance and user expe­ri­ence (UX) gaps where they have tra­di­tion­al­ly fall­en behind native apps. How­ev­er, native devel­op­ment still remains the gold stan­dard for max­i­miz­ing per­for­mance and allow­ing apps to lever­age the lat­est device features. 

In this dis­cus­sion we will break down the pros and cons to both approaches. 

Native devel­op­ment refers to build­ing sep­a­rate ded­i­cat­ed apps for each oper­at­ing sys­tem (iOS and Android) using their “native” pro­gram­ming lan­guages and tools. For exam­ple, the ver­sion of an app that will be used pri­mar­i­ly by users who have an iPhone will need to be built as an iOS app writ­ten in Swift or Objective‑C. Addi­tion­al­ly, it will require using the Inte­grat­ed Devel­op­ment Envi­ron­ment (IDE) for Apple’s iOS apps called Xcode. In regards to the Android ver­sion of the app, it will be devel­oped using Kotlin or Java using Google’s Android Studio. 

Strengths that Native apps inher­ent­ly have are the abil­i­ty to have imme­di­ate access to the lat­est OS fea­tures and appli­ca­tion pro­gram­ming inter­faces (APIs) as soon as Apple or Google releas­es them. Each respec­tive app also is able to achieve peak per­for­mance and a high qual­i­ty user expe­ri­ence that feels nat­ur­al to the device and the oper­at­ing sys­tem that they are using. Native apps are able to han­dle inten­sive tasks like gam­ing, 3D graph­ics, or aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) fea­tures. Ride-hail­ing and social media apps Uber and Snapchat rely on native code to ensure the fil­ters, real-time loca­tion ser­vices, and AR aspects of their apps deliv­er high qual­i­ty performance.

Some draw­backs that may come from native is hav­ing mul­ti­ple sep­a­rate code­bas­es that need to be devel­oped and main­tained sep­a­rate­ly, one for iOS and anoth­er for Android. Which means dou­ble the work and hav­ing two dif­fer­ent engi­neer­ing teams where any update or a fix to a bug may need to be imple­ment­ed twice. Hav­ing to main­tain two dif­fer­ent code­bas­es is not only dou­ble the effort but it also of course dou­bles the cost, requir­ing a larg­er bud­get and team to achieve fea­ture par­i­ty on both. Build­ing fea­tures twice can slow down devel­op­ment veloc­i­ty, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to coor­di­nate releas­es, and increase time to market. 

Cross-plat­form devel­op­ment uses a sin­gu­lar code­base to build apps for mul­ti­ple plat­forms: iOS, Android, and even web or desk­top apps. Today, some of the most pop­u­lar cross-plat­form frame­works are React Native and Flut­ter. Cross-plat­form frame­works allow you to write your app once in one of the core main­stream pro­gram­ming lan­guages such as JavaScript or Dart and deploy for both iOS and Android. 

The val­ue that cross-plat­form devel­op­ment offers is the abil­i­ty to launch on mul­ti­ple plat­forms faster with one team, sav­ing time and mon­ey. The low­er-cost that comes from effi­cient­ly build­ing with one code­base is a cru­cial advan­tage for star­tups and projects that have a tighter bud­get. In terms of new fea­ture devel­op­ment, main­te­nance, and updates that need to be made, the process is much more sim­pler using cross-plat­form development. 

Ryan Evans, Soft­ware Engi­neer at ISBX, shared his expe­ri­ence build­ing apps using cross-plat­form frame­works with us:

“You don’t need two sep­a­rate skill sets (refer­ring to iOS and Android) for exam­ple. Our React Native teams using JavaScript/TypeScript can deliv­er for both plat­forms. It also helps with keep­ing the UI/UX across devices con­sis­tent, which we’ve observed is great for brand con­sis­ten­cy. We work with our ISBX Design Teams to cre­ate a sin­gle look and feel that all users will under­stand whether it is for Android or iPhone. This is real­ly impor­tant if you want to have the exact same design and behav­ior everywhere.” 

We also asked Ryan for his thoughts on com­par­ing cross-plat­form vs native devel­op­ment on performance. 

“Mod­ern cross-plat­form tools are very capa­ble when build­ing com­mon apps like social, e‑commerce, or pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tools that can achieve up to 80% of the per­for­mance of native built apps. How­ev­er, there are still a cou­ple of draw­backs to be mind­ful of when choos­ing. When an app requires push­ing hard­ware to its lim­its like 3D graph­ics, ani­ma­tions, strong use of GPU, and AR/VR fea­tures, native devel­op­ment deliv­ers bet­ter speed and respon­sive­ness. We also some­times have delayed access to the lat­est iOS and Android fea­tures because when Apple and Google intro­duce some­thing new like an appli­ca­tion pro­gram­ming inter­face (API), our teams build­ing cross-plat­form apps might have to imple­ment cus­tom native mod­ules requir­ing addi­tion­al cost, time, and effort. Nowa­days, the cross-plat­form devel­op­ment com­mu­ni­ty is stronger than ever before so hold ups are usu­al­ly short but for bleed­ing-edge fea­tures an app may tem­porar­i­ly need native code.”

Over­all, the bal­ance between its strengths and draw­backs makes cross-plat­form devel­op­ment appeal­ing for reach­ing both iOS and Android users quick­ly with a sin­gle con­sis­tent app expe­ri­ence in a fast and afford­able way. It is espe­cial­ly use­ful for star­tups look­ing to val­i­date an idea on mul­ti­ple plat­forms with a lim­it­ed bud­get and time. 

Ulti­mate­ly, the deci­sion between build­ing your app as a native or cross-plat­form project should be guid­ed by your unique require­ments and con­straints. It is not a one size fits all sit­u­a­tion. Both work well if exe­cut­ed prop­er­ly and if it remains aligned with your project goals. It is not a game about declar­ing one as the win­ner but rather pick­ing what is the best fit for you. 

If you require the high­est per­for­mance and have the resources for it, then native devel­op­ment will give you that extra edge of qual­i­ty. If you need to pri­or­i­tize sup­port­ing both iOS and Android on a lim­it­ed bud­get or you are build­ing an MVP to test a mar­ket, cross-plat­form devel­op­ment is the smarter choice to launch faster and iter­ate quickly. 

Many of our clients have found suc­cess start­ing with cross-plat­form and then mov­ing into native for a sec­ond ver­sion of the app once the con­cept has been proven. It’s actu­al­ly total­ly pos­si­ble to blend both approach­es by using a pri­ma­ry cross-plat­form code­base and then writ­ing native mod­ules for spe­cif­ic needs. Soft­ware devel­op­ment is con­tin­u­ous­ly evolv­ing and the native vs cross-plat­form debate is not a zero-sum game. It is actu­al­ly com­mon to see a mix of both used togeth­er. How­ev­er, regard­less of what deci­sion we take, our ISBX teams have found that it is cru­cial for it to be done in a mind­ful and proac­tive man­ner align­ing with project require­ments, design­ing the soft­ware archi­tec­ture prop­er­ly, and exe­cut­ing devel­op­ment with precision.