Native vs Webview Shopify Apps: What's the Difference?
Native apps draw their own screens; webview apps show your mobile website inside an app. Here's how they differ in speed, features, app review and cost for Shopify stores.
When you compare Shopify app builders, they fall into two camps. Native builders generate an app with its own screens for your home page, collections, products, cart and account. Webview builders (sometimes called wrappers or hybrid apps) load your existing mobile website inside an app, usually with a native tab bar and push notifications added on top.
Both get you into the App Store and Google Play. They feel very different to use.
How native apps work
A native app talks to Shopify's APIs directly: it fetches products and collections and draws them with the phone's own interface components. Casa, Tapcart, Vajro, Plobal, Shopney and Appbrew work this way. (Casa is built with React Native, which compiles to native iOS and Android interfaces.)
- Fast: screens open instantly, images are cached, and scrolling feels like any other app.
- Feels like an app: swipe gestures, bottom tabs, native sheets and transitions.
- Designed for the app: you build a home screen specifically for mobile shoppers.
- Passes app review easily: it has real app functionality.
- Trade-off: theme apps and custom code from your website don't appear automatically. The builder has to support each feature (reviews, loyalty, subscriptions) through an integration.
How webview apps work
A webview app is a thin native shell around a browser view of your website. MobiLoud is the best-known example for Shopify.
- Everything on your site works: every theme customization and every Shopify app on your storefront shows up in the app.
- One design to maintain: change your theme, and the app changes.
- Trade-off: speed. Every tap loads a web page, so it's only as fast as your mobile site.
- Trade-off: feel. It looks and behaves like a website, because it is one.
- Trade-off: app review. Apple's guideline 4.2 rejects apps that are "simply a website bundled as an app". Good webview services add enough native features to pass, but it's a risk you don't have with native apps.
Side by side
| Native | Webview | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Instant screens, cached images | Same as your mobile site |
| Look and feel | Native app | Your mobile website |
| Website apps and custom code | Only via builder integrations | Everything works |
| Design | Built for the app in a visual builder | Inherits your theme |
| Apple review risk | Low | Higher (guideline 4.2) |
| Push notifications | Yes | Yes |
| Checkout | Shopify checkout (natively with Checkout Kit in Casa) | Shopify checkout in the webview |
| Typical price | From under $100 to $500+/month | Often several hundred dollars a month and up |
What about checkout?
In both cases checkout should run on Shopify, so your payment methods, discounts, shipping and taxes stay exactly the same. Native apps increasingly use Shopify Checkout Kit, which opens Shopify's own checkout in a native sheet with Shop Pay, Apple Pay and saved addresses, without sending the shopper out to a browser. Casa uses Checkout Kit and carries the customer's sign-in into checkout.
Which should you choose?
- Choose native if you want the fastest app, an experience designed for mobile shoppers, and the lowest review risk. This is the right choice for most Shopify stores.
- Choose webview if your website relies on heavy custom functionality (complex product builders, unusual apps) that no native builder supports, and your mobile site is already fast.
Compare the builders themselves in the best Shopify mobile app builders, or see Casa vs MobiLoud for a native vs webview comparison.