A Guide To Hybrid App Development

By Author: Katte Willis
Total Articles: 6
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Hybrid app development is the process of developing a single application that can run on different operating systems, like Android, iOS, and Windows.

We can look at hybrid app development as a two-part process.

The coding of the application uses languages like HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
The “wrapping” of the application uses open-source frameworks like React Native or Apache Cordova.
Hybrid app development is a great way to overcome the limitations of web apps while replicating the behavior of native apps. Essentially, hybrid apps are web apps with added native features.

How Do Hybrid Apps Work
The soul of the hybrid apps is the backend code written in web technologies. Its body is the native shell. This native shell takes the role of a bridge that connects the code to different platforms.

For each platform, the app is run through its embedded browser rather than the web browser. This happens from within the native shell and is invisible to users. The WebView feature is used to perform the embedding.

Further, plugins are used to enable complete access to a device’s ...
... capabilities. So, accessing a device’s camera, Bluetooth, GPS, etc., can be achieved by installing plugins. Thus, plugins help hybrid apps behave like native apps and overcome the limitations of web apps.

And the native shells make it easy to create a native interface by providing a set of UI components. They act as building blocks of hybrid apps and make them on par with native apps in terms of look and feel.

What are the Top 9 Benefits of Hybrid App Development
Hybrid app development is quite popular as it offers several benefits for businesses.

It is a very feasible option for mobile app development that offers the perfect balance between cost-effectiveness and functionality.

Let us look at the nine benefits that it provides.

an illustration of a man coding a hybrid application
1. Multi-Platform Support
Hybrid apps have multi-platform support, as you would have already understood from our discussions so far.

It uses a single code base and can easily be scaled for other platforms. Once you have created an app for one platform, say Android, it can be launched on other platforms like iOS and Windows without much difficulty.

2. Easy to Maintain
Since there is only a single codebase, the ease of maintenance is incredible. Only one database has to be managed, no matter how many platforms the app runs. Further, HTML codes are relatively easy to maintain.

3. Faster Development Cycle
Hybrid application development is fast compared to native app development due to the single codebase advantage. In fact, hybrid apps would only require half the development time of native apps.

This offers a great benefit for businesses as they can release an MVP in a short period. This helps them reach the market soon and gives them a competitive advantage.

4. Less Cost of Development
With hybrid app development, there is no need to spend on building different apps for different platforms. This reduces the cost of development to a great extent.

Further, the time required for development and the number of developers is also less, which cuts down the cost again.

And even the maintenance cost is also not much concerning, as it requires the management of only a single codebase. Thus hybrid apps are a perfect choice for small businesses who want to develop mobile apps on a limited budget.

5. Access to Device Features
A significant disadvantage of web apps was that they couldn’t access the features of a device, like the address book, camera, etc. Hybrid apps overcome this disadvantage.

Just like native apps, hybrid apps can access device features. This is possible with the help of the app development framework and the related plugins.

6. Offline Support
One of the great benefits that hybrid apps offer is offline availability. It is very useful in situations like constant traveling or unstable network connectivity.

Hybrid apps can store data locally. It enables them to load the app with previously loaded data. So even though users may not be able to access real-time data, they can still use hybrid apps in an offline mode.

7. Native Experience
Hybrid apps provide a near-native experience to their users. Its performance is consistent and offers excellent fluidity across various platforms. It succeeds in delivering a seamless user experience to users.

8. Great Performance
When it comes to performance, hybrid apps are faster than both responsive and progressive web apps. Since they are lightweight, app loading happens super fast. And their independence with the network for loading further accentuates the performance.

9. Easy to Update
For native applications, an app update is a critical factor for both developers and users to experience the best performance of the app. Updates take time and can sometimes be a headache.

With hybrid app development, updating is as simple as refreshing a web page. This makes it easy to implement modern mobile app development trends, access the latest versions, making maintenance simple.