It doesn’t take much convincing anymore that businesses need mobile apps. Some business apps are designed to empower mobile workers to do their jobs, communicate with customers, and collaborate with other workers, partners, and vendors. Other business apps are customer-facing, that is, they allow customers to interact with, shop, and receive services from your company. When you’re preparing to launch a mobile app of any kind, you’ll be faced with a choice between templates or a custom app. Here are the differences and how you can decide.
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While speaking about the difference between custom and template mobile apps, we should in the first turn nail down the goals we are pursuing. Below is the list of aims and requirements, which functional capacity of templates would be able to satisfy:
• If you wish to create a blog, portfolio or photo gallery online
• If you’d like to add benefits to your business by making a promo website or business card website;
• When you are interested in taking on news website or any other informational portal
• You are starting a simple e-commerce website.
As you can see, the list is rather vast, and there are certain advantages that are offered to us by template apps – they are often free or inexpensive, and easily accessible. However, their disadvantages outweigh in case we need to create a custom, fully-controlled and fully-fledged web or mobile app. When our goal is to launch and develop a successful business, we certainly need to create a custom one.
Read also: How much does it cost to develop an app
Let us take a closer look at dilemma called “Custom vs template mobile apps”.
What Template Apps Are
As the name implies, template apps are cookie-cutter type design frameworks which can be customized to some degree to produce an app with very little in the way of in-house development or design. Depending on the vendor, some template apps require little or no actual IT or development skills.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Template Apps
The primary advantage of templates is that they allow you to get the app deployed very quickly. While cost is sometimes an important factor, development time and skills are usually the top motivation for choosing template apps. The low cost may mean less risk for the business initially, but it also means less flexibility and control over the app. Most businesses that go with a template app are surprised at how quickly they outgrow the hosting offered by the vendor and need more flexibility, scalability, data storage, and other features the vendor can’t offer — or can’t offer at a reasonable price.
What Custom Apps Are
A custom app might be a work app for your mobile employees or telecommuters, or it could be a customer-facing app for shoppers. Businesses also develop apps for their vendors and partners to stay in touch and get valuable information.Custom apps, as you might have guessed, are developed in-house or by a custom app developer. Unlike templates, custom apps can be designed from the ground up to be exactly what the business needs. These apps are unique and can be highly specialized for the users that need it.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Custom Apps
Custom apps are generally much more efficient and productive, since they are designed specifically for the task at hand. Customization also usually means that the business retains more control over the security of the data handled and collected by the app, which can be huge in terms of regulatory compliance. With a custom app, you can maintain control of things like workflow, data governance, and data access.
Custom apps are almost always more expensive than templates, and it does take some time to get a custom app developed, tested, and deployed. In the end, however, the business has total control over the features and functionality, data, users, devices, and other aspects of managing a mobile app. Mobile application developers can build a business app to spec and work with the business to determine the best way to create it. The app developers might also offer support services to help the business and its users get the maximum benefit out of the app once it is deployed.
In the battle Template App vs. Custom App, the latter one wins after consideration of all pros and cons. Reliability, control and success are the features that characterize the product, which is adjusted to your needs to the full.
Read also: Custom Backend or BaaS: Which Should You Choose?
Are you wondering what a custom designed app can offer your business for the additional investment? See our work for other customers to help you make your decision or stop thinking ang type “I wanna an app now!” here.
