The Mobile App Development
Platform Decision:
Cross-compiled
vs Hybrid vs Native
The objective of this report is to help
developers and companies decide on the best platform for building mobile apps.
This report is based on a compilation of research, market trends and ratings from
different sources as well as our technical evaluations on various cross-platform
tools for building mobile applications available in the market.
There were two drivers within our company
leading to the work in this report.
- Keeping Current with the Latest Trends: Need to
keep abreast of the latest trends and technologies mobile app development, and
hence the best platform to develop our mobile apps.
- Rationalize the Development Cost: Given
that we develop web-based apps, server-side apps, and mobile apps, it was
becoming difficult to manage the diverse set of technology skills required
within our development team. The number
of skills each developer needs to master as well as the number of developers
required to manage different apps was fast becoming unsustainable.
Switching app development platform is
expensive and often entails re-developing some of the existing apps. The decision on which platform to use for
developing mobile apps could be affected by the other types of applications and
technologies used within the company. This
report focuses on the mobile app development platform options.
After performing individual comparisons
between different Hybrid development platforms, and selecting the top few, an
overlying comparison table was made comparing 3 different mobile development
approaches - Hybrid, Cross-Compiled and Native. This table compared
cross-compiled platform tools such as Apache Flex/ActionScript, Ionic, React
Native, Appcelerator Titanium, Xamarin, and Native Android/iOS development
tools on various metrics such as Ease of Development, Learning Curve, Time-to-market,
Device Access, Performance, User Experience, Development Cost, Access to
features and Future Scope.
Each platform option was scored on each
metric, with a lower number signifying a better score. These scores were based
off of different comparison research reports done which highlighted specific
aspects of a certain cross-platform tool on similar metrics. The report contains scores that are subjective
assessments made by us. Other experts in this area could arrive at different
rankings and conclusions. At the very
least, we hope readers would get a good idea on different factors to consider
in picking their mobile app development platform.
To download the full report, including our final recommendations, please fill in your details below.