4 Strong Reasons to Choose Cloud-Based Apps Over Native Apps

Creating a mobile app is one of the most sought after options that business are considering these days as a part of their expansion plans.

There’s a solid reason for this.

A mobile app is something that is tailor-made to reach the masses and strongly enhance the overall experience a consumer has while using a product/service.

Something that well and truly corroborates this current trend is the fact that there are around 5 million mobile apps operating in android and IOS stores.

On the downside, this also leaves a business with very little scope of developing an app that is highly unique in its functionalities.

However, what if I tell you that there is a smart way you can have the edge over your contemporaries when it comes to app development.

Something that significantly benefits you in terms of the overall app development cost and makes your new app naturally have a greater reach in terms of its customer base.

The secret is to create your new mobile app on a cloud-based platform and not going for the conventional native platform.

Not fully convinced yet?

Here are a few points that can help you ditch that skeptical mindset towards cloud-based apps:

(1) There’s no platform dilemma

This is the most common hindrance that app developers face while developing an app through the native platform.

Factors such as overall cost, duration, and target audience are the most notable factors that app developers have to consider while deciding whether to go for android or IOS or both.

However, when it comes to cloud-based apps, the complicated issue of choosing a particular platform almost becomes nonexistent.

No matter which platform you are choosing, you are inherently bound to lose a large customer base that is specifically active in the app platform that you ditched.

In fact, according to a mobile usage survey conducted by goodfirms, an app is expected to miss out on an average of 60% of its overall customer base if it chooses android over IOS or vice versa.

Contrary to this, cloud based apps perform equally on every platform.

As an app developer, this presents you with the freedom to design your app in a manner that caters to a relatively wider target audience.

The customer flexibility that cloud-based apps offer also helps in easing up your app-building and marketing operations as you no longer have to concentrate on a certain specific customer segment as in the case of creating platform-specific apps.

In a nutshell, going for a cloud-based app would enhance the potential to enhance your download number and revenue generation significantly.

(2) Smooth Data Integration

If I had to name a unique incentive that cloud-based apps offer, then it would surely be “Seamless Data Integration.”

This is something that has become a must-have for app oriented business if they hope to run their operations smoothly.

But what most native apps are falling prey to these days is the complex and tricky nature of the data integration process.

Importing your complete database information to your app is not only time-consuming but complicated as well.

That there are significant chances of incomplete data being imported.

With cloud-based apps, the data integration process is naturally less cumbersome, as you only need to sync your business database with your cloud server.

Cloud servers can save you a lot of effort and money for writing complex codes to integrate databases.

(3) Lower Costs

Creating a native app in today’s scenario inherently brings in high costs with them.

The “moderately complex category” under which almost every native app falls will cost you somewhere between $60000-$120000.

Other than this, choosing a particular app platform also greatly influences the prices of an app nowadays.

For example, creating an android app would always cost more than an IOS app as android apps now need to be made compatible with a plethora of different devices unlike IOS.

Other than this, one of the most underrated costs that many app developers ignore is the yearly maintenance cost after the app’s release.

As per a survey, an average yearly maintenance cost for an app ranges somewhere between $5000 to $10000.

In case an app is being released on both android and IOS platforms, the costs can easily be expected to be twice as high.

This is something that can prove to be quite expensive for startups and small scale firms.

Cloud-based apps, on the other hand, are relatively much lighter on your pocket.

This is because unlike native apps, they are completely bereft of any additional app maintenance costs for separate platforms.

Therefore they are ideal for small businesses and startups that might not be able to afford high maintenance rates for their apps.

(4) Better data handling

Finally, cloud-based servers have some inherent advantages over local servers that are used by native apps.

Here are two reasons as to why cloud servers offer a relatively better data storage package than localized servers.

• The issue of data safety

It’s very common for app databases to store truckloads of consumer data that are of a highly sensitive nature.

Account passwords and credit card pins being the most notable among them.

There’s a reason why storing sensitive data on isolated localized servers is a big risk for app development companies.

That’s because it would be a highly challenging task to restore the data or take precautionary measures if there’s a data leak/breach.

Since cloud servers are automatically accessible from any location by default, it would be much easier and faster for firms to take security actions in case of data breaches.

• Recovering Lost data

The ease and scope of recovering the lost data is also much more feasible.

Be it an intentional data breach or a natural disaster, not being able to recover the data in a timely manner can lead to a significant reputation and revenue loss for the firm.

Cloud servers are must more trustworthy in this scenario, as the firm can always get access to the data from multiple servers and locations.

Wrapping Up…

Native apps have been extremely dominant since the time apps came into existence.

Its primarily due to this that people tend to ignore their shortcomings and have a sceptical mindset towards cloud based apps that have come into the limelight quite recently.

An app developer should always consider the bigger picture and focus on the long term success and survival of the app.

Therefore if elements such as cost, safety of operations, streamlined operations, customer base are to be considered, cloud based apps turn out to be an equally capable if not a better alternative.

Hi There, I am Shaun Williams, a content writer with Goodfirms, a research platform for DevOps and Game Development companies, among many others. I enjoy communicating ideas and knowledge creatively and also ensure that the readers never suffer from boredom while reading my posts.