Cross-Platform App Development: Pros and Cons

A while back, mobile app developers were confined to native apps that aren’t designed to work on different systems. However, the rapidly growing popularity of mobile app development has brought fresh ideas directed at cutting development time and costs.
To make things transparent and estimate the key benefits and flaws of cross-platform app development, we’ve collected the actual data that will help you to understand the cross-platform development model better.

Cross-Platform Development: Concept

The cross-platform app development involves the building of mobile apps that can run on multiple platforms. Cross-platform apps are run like native ones. Such kind of development implies that apps are built with a single codebase – that means the code can be shared across both Android and iOS apps.

Cross-Platform Development Pros

Speed. Having sufficient knowledge of all main development platforms and responsive and adaptive principles, development, and design stages appear to be patterned and fast. Also, you can reuse the code for various situations reducing both time and effort.
Maintenance. Having a single codebase, the cross-platform development doesn’t require changes to every mobile platform as they affect both of them and the updates are equally applied. It enables users to access the products and services on more than one platform. The cross-platform app’s content is portable requiring a native harness to run it.
Cost. Building a cross-platform app means lower expenses regarding quality assurance. To develop a separate mobile app, there’s a need to multiply the budget and working hours in regard to the number of OSs. Opting for all platforms at once can gravely decrease the costs.
Consistency. Android and iOS platforms introduce different features that can predetermine presentation. The cross-platform development ensures consistent app thread maintenance on all platforms which is a nice bit. It incorporates some UI elements specific to each platform and one codebase containing the mobile app’s business logic.
Access. Developers can package the mobile app through a server or locally so far providing access offline and online.

Cross-Platform Development Cons

Limited integration. Unlike cross-platform app development, native development can embrace the full potential of a device’s native API’s whereas cross-platform applications can only access some.
Worse performance. Although the things may look good both inside and on a greater scale, there are some fine flaws. When it comes to UX, web app and its mobile version are in a different vein. The web apps for mobile platforms are to inherit their native UX to gain traction. Lack of sheer iOS or Android’s UI assets may lead to slower app performance.
Support. Since cross-platform app development is relatively new, there’s not so much support for any troubleshooting for some emergent issues that may occur. The automatic generation might not work on all devices. Cordova, Phonegap, and other frameworks deliver their own by-products, which means you are to manage the particular packages in the stores. Keeping all versions synchronized throughout platforms and address individual bugs can be even more challenging than a native model.
Competition. It might be hard to compete with native developers as they can be faster and smoother when it comes to updates and bugs fixing while a cross-platform developer has to adapt both apps and copy with OS restrictions.

Where to Use Cross-Platform?

Cross-platform development is the right path when there’s a need to build an inner app of a corporate purpose (conference, event, mLearning apps). It will suffice in case the company is seeking a less costly faster development and shorter time to market. The cross-platform approach is suitable for start-ups and small businesses as well.

Judgment

Actually, there’s no winner since everything comes from the company’s requirements, goals, the complexity of the app, and the resources the company has at the moment. Weighing the strong sides and the drawbacks of each app development model sounds like the right path. Bearing in mind that the model that works for one mobile app may not be applied to another can prevent undesirable implications.
It’s essential to comprehend how each framework can benefit your venture so that you can pitch upon the best solution. Finally, both native and cross-platform development require sound comprehension of JS, HTML, CSS, and UI design.
You can learn more about cross-platform app development here