Many people are not aware of the difference between native apps and web apps. They think that these are the same. As, when anyone thinks of an app, the first thing that comes to mind is the small icon of an app on our mobile screen. These app icons are native mobile apps. And the apps that we can open in browsers are called web apps. In this article, I will try to differentiate between native and web apps.

Native Apps

Native apps are the most common type of mobile application. These apps are platform-specific applications and are written in platform-specific languages. For example, android applications are written using Java or Kotlin coding language and iOS applications are developed using Swift or objective C.

Native mobile applications are faster and reliable than web apps and hybrid apps. As they can interact with the device's OS and internal hardware easily.

Advantages of Native Apps

• Native apps are Faster, as code is written for the specific platforms.

• Native apps provide a better User Experience because they are platform-specific and use the operating system-specific user interface guidelines and standards.

• Another major advantage of native apps is that they are visible in app stores. That is why they can easily be discovered by the users.

Disadvantages of Native Apps

• These are expensive in terms of development and maintenance.

• These apps require developers with platform-specific language experience.

• The Native apps are not a good option for a simple app.

Web Apps

Web apps are like websites and can be used in web browsers like safari, chrome and are written using Javascript, HTML, and CSS.

Advantages of Web Apps

-The major advantage of web apps is that they are easy to maintain due to the fact that they share the same code base across different platforms.

• These are cheaper as compared to native apps.

• Web apps provide easy accessibility as the users can open the web apps in the browser, without the need of downloading them to their device.

Disadvantages of Web Apps

• Web apps are slower than native apps and are less responsive.

• Web apps are not visible in app stores, so they are less discoverable.

• Web apps do not have wide access to device hardware.

All in all, both apps are equally important for a business. But the decision depends on the business that which mobile strategy the business decides to follow to deliver a better user experience.