Pros And Cons Of Cross Platform Mobile Application Development

Cross-platform app development is a common approach among businesses today. It supports the development of custom mobile apps that are compatible across mobile platforms. Targeting many segments helps organizations to reach out to more users and, thus, increase the market share. It helps address the challenges for businesses, software vendors, and mobile development teams.

Like any other technology, cross-platform application development has its share of advantages and disadvantages. Our article aims to list some of the prominent ones to help make an informed decision.

Advantages

• Reusable Code Components: With both cross-platform and hybrid app development approach, the development teams don’t have to write unique code for different platforms. Instead, the program developed for one app gets leveraged many times. It is with code base used in bits for future projects.
• Speed: It is one of the best advantages of cross-platform mobile app development. The use of single source code across multiple platforms helps reduce 50 – 80 % of development efforts across projects. It enables development teams to abide and adhere by project deadlines.
• Reduced Costs: Internet marketing is considered as the future for mobile applications. And, the cost of application development across different platforms discourages companies. The use of single code base across platforms results in significant cost reduction. Even the development teams don’t have to invest time and money in learning multiple technologies. They have to master a few skills to get started with the development process.

Disadvantages

• Performance Challenges: Cross-platform apps have integration challenges with their target operating systems. It is because of inconsistent communication between device’s native and non-native components. It affects the optimum performance of applications.
• Slow Code Performance With Limited Tool Availability: Cross-compliance during the development phase make the code sluggish and even reduces the speed. Also, at times it becomes mandatory for the developers to make use of tools and suited limited to a particular app.
• Limited User Experience: Cross-platform applications are not able to take total advantage of native-only features to provide excellent user experiences. It is because of different screen layouts, platforms, and functionality.