Mobile app development: comparison of native, metadata-driven (SEAM), hybrid and web-based approaches

[tamasszirtes]

Why and when should customers use the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS? How to develop mobile apps once and deploy them to multiple mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Windows). With web technologies developing very fast, are there still limitations of the web-based approach? How does the new SAP Enterprise App Modeler fit into the picture? – These are some of the topics we discussed in the focus group meeting organized together by the VNSG User Experience and the VNSG Custom Development focus groups.

 

It was our honor to get a very interesting and detailed overview from gerhard.henig (Vice President of Product Management, Mobile Platform at SAP), then I presented the hybrid approach, covering Cordova, Kapsel, SAP Cloud Platform mobile service, Fiori Mobile, etc. and then we got an excellent explanation of the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS from robin.vanhethof.

 

I personally enjoyed the last part of the meeting a lot, where we took an old, partially out-dated slide from me (From my 2015 Teched presentation EXP27358 Tips and tricks for building cross-platform [iOS, Android, etc.] mobile apps in SAPUI5) and together, in a very interactive session, we modified it and extended it.

 

Here is the result. Already in the meeting we noticed some strong opinions, so I wouldn’t be surprised to get interesting comments on this blog. Please join the conversation and add your comment. We are always open for improvements of this matrix.

 

	Native	Native (metadata-driven SEAM)	Hybrid	Web
Pros	Ultimate performance Ultimate UX Direct access to peripherals Strong security	Less expensive Only one technology to learn as a developer Updates of the apps are possible	Design once deploy many Massive development community Large device support Updates can be pushed into the app	Updates are immediate Very large device compatibility Massive development community Low cost
Cons	Expensive to support multiple platforms Specialized skills Rewrite for each device type (not iOS) Updates require redeploy Managing multiple versions of the app	Innovations can’t be used immediately	Suboptimal UX Updates of plugins have to be managed	Limited offline app caching capabilities No built-in quality assurance Limited access to some peripherals No app store access Security
Good use case	UX very important Device specific design Process intensive apps Complex offline apps	Complex apps with multiple screens	Lightweight workflow apps Fiori-based apps B2C business apps	Mobile version of existing web content Lightweight apps
Bad use case	B2C oriented (cost)		Heavy process driven apps with offline requirements Apps heavy on CPU	Apps requiring access to peripherals Apps heavy on CPU Apps starting offline

 

The speakers:

Gerhard Henig:



Robin van het Hof:



Tamas Szirtes:



 

Thanks to Henny Claessens, Marcel Hesen and Jan-Willem Kaagman, my partners in crime to get this meeting organized.