Native, mobile web, or hybrid? For companies considering mobile apps, that is the million dollar question. Which direction do you take?
The answer: It depends. There’s no single correct answer that applies to every situation. Each option (mobile web apps, hybrid apps, and native apps) has its own advantages. The right path for your company depends on a variety of factors, such as: What are you trying to accomplish with your app? When do you need it? Which skills do you have in-house?
Here are a couple of options to help you figure out which path is best: First, you can check out this white paper that takes an in-depth look at the topic. Secondly, we’ve put together the following comparison chart for each mobile development method. It compares the main differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each.
| Native | Hybrid | Mobile Web | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skills/tools needed for cross-platform apps |
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|
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| Distribution | App Store/Market | App Store/Market | Internet |
| Development Speed | Slow | Moderate | Fast |
| Number of applications needed to reach major smartphone platforms |
4 |
1 |
1 |
| Ongoing application maintenance | Difficult | Moderate | Low |
| Device access | Full access: (Camera, microphone, GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, file upload, etc…) |
Full access: (Camera, microphone, GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, file upload, etc…) |
Partial access: (GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, file upload.) |
| Offline access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Advantages | Lets you create apps with rich user interfaces and/or heavy graphics. | Combines the development speed of mobile web apps with the device access and app store distribution of native apps. | Offers fast development, simple maintenance, and full application portability. One mobile web app works on any platform. |
| Disadvantages |
|
|
|
| Best used for |
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Joe Stangarone is a 30+ year veteran of the IT industry and president of mrc—the software company behind the award winning development platform, 
9 comments
Hybrid vs. Native vs. Mobile web comparison chart | mrc's Cup of ... | Mobile2 | Scoop.it says:
March 20, 2012 at 6:40 am (UTC -5)
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Kim Reynolds says:
March 23, 2012 at 8:08 am (UTC -5)
Thanks for the timely information. I am just starting to investigate the whole mobile application development, and the type and style of apps needed for mobile apps. This information is very helpful.
Chris Thiele says:
March 26, 2012 at 5:32 pm (UTC -5)
This is a great chart. I’m helping put together a mobile strategy for my company and have been asked to provide cost estimates for the different options. Is there any way to roughly quantify the costs in the table in terms of percentage? I see that Mobil web has a cost advantage over native, but is there any way to estimate if it’s 20% or 80% for example?
Joe Stangarone says:
March 28, 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -5)
Hi Chris –
That’s a good question. While it’s tough to put the costs in terms of percentages, you can roughly figure cost based on the number of developers needed, development time required, and maintenance time required for each method. Now, it’s important that you factor in time requirements. It’s a sneaky cost, but it does add to the overall cost of the project (assuming you’re paying the app developers). With that in mind, let’s break down each method:
If you’re creating mobile web apps, you’ll only need to build one app to reach all platforms. That means you’ll need one web developer to develop and maintain your app. The maintenance time requirement is low, since there’s only one app to maintain.
If you’re creating hybrid apps, you’ll need everything required to create mobile web apps, as well as a native wrapper (like PhoneGap). Essentially, your web developer builds a mobile web app and wraps it in a different native wrapper for each platform. While not as time consuming as actually building native apps, it does require more time to develop and maintain than a mobile web app.
If you’re creating cross-platform native smartphone apps, you’ll need 4 separate apps. Unless you have developers familiar with multiple platforms, that means you’ll need 4 different developers. That also means that you’ll have to maintain 4 different applications on an ongoing basis.
So, to give a very rough estimate, the cost to develop and maintain cross-platform native apps is roughly 4 times higher than mobile web apps, and maybe 2-3 times higher than hybrid apps. I know that’s not extremely specific, but I hope that helps a little.
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April 1, 2012 at 12:24 am (UTC -5)
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Anonymous says:
October 14, 2012 at 2:01 am (UTC -5)
Fantastic post, thank you so much for sharing. Do you happen to have an RSS feed I can subscribe to?