With the demand from business owners to reach a wider audience and increase their market presence the rise of cross-platform application development has been significant. With the increasing number of smartphones and tablets running on various operating systems, businesses need to adopt a cross-platform approach to mobile app development.
This approach allows developers to create applications that can run on multiple platforms, such as Android and iOS, with a single codebase, reducing development time and costs.
Today the market is flooded with various cross-platform app development tools and frameworks. So to help you out in this blog we’ve covered the 10 best frameworks, their advantages, and how to select the ideal cross-platform mobile app development framework for your project.
What Is A Cross-Platform App Framework?
A cross-platform app development framework is a set of tools, libraries, and reusable code components that allows developers to create applications that can run on multiple operating systems, such as Android and iOS, using a single codebase.
This approach is most popular in the app development domain since allows developers to write a single code that can be deployed in the application across different platforms. Therefore, today most mobile app development service provider companies now adopt cross-platform frameworks.
By using this approach business owners can reach to wide audience. In the following section, we will uncover the best cross-platform app frameworks.
Best Frameworks For Cross-platform Mobile App Development
1. React Native
Developed in 2015, React Naive is an open-source UI software framework. Its framework is built on JavaScript to write real code and offer a native-like feel to mobile applications that run on both Android and iOS.
React Native combines JavaScript and React.JS advantages. It allows cross-platform app developers to create modules using Objective-C, Swift, or Java. With native modules in React Native apps, developers can handle complex tasks like image editing or video processing, not covered by the framework APIs. Versions 0.62 and above automatically integrate React Native to work with the mobile app debugger Flipper, simplifying debugging processes.
2. Flutter
Introduced by Google in 2017, Flutter is a cross-platform app development framework featuring a reactive framework, eliminating manual UI updates. You need to use Google’s programming language, Dart, for building applications with Flutter. A hot reload capacity is one of Flutter’s standout feature. It allows you to see how your application changes as soon as you modify your code, without you having to recompile it. This speeds up the development process.
Flutter works differently from other app-building platforms that rely on web browsers. It has its way of showing things called a rendering engine. In Flutter, everything, like buttons and screens, works like building blocks called widgets. This makes it easier to make and reuse different parts of the app’s design. Siddhatech is a Top-notch Flutter App Development Company that specializes in creating high-quality, innovative, and user-centric mobile applications using the Flutter framework.
3. Xamarin
Xamarin, acquired by Microsoft in 2011, differs from other frameworks. It uses C# and .Net, not JS and HTML, to build apps for Android, Windows, and iOS. Developers can reuse around 90% of the code across platforms, achieving native app looks via powerful APIs. Xamarin leverages Base Class Library (BCL) with extensive features like XML and databases. Leveraging Xamarin.Forms, the developers can allow uniform app appearance across different OS platforms. Compiled bindings improve data binding performance, reducing runtime errors.
4. Ionic
Ionic, an open-source SAAS UI framework launched in 2013, stands as a remarkable cross-platform framework based on AngularJS. It helps developers build hybrid apps for mobile and desktop by blending native and web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It integrates seamlessly with Angular, React, and Vue frameworks. This framework uses Cordova plugins to access device features like Camera, GPS, and Audio Recorder, a significant advantage in cross-platform development.
5. Node.js
Node.js relies on the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine and serves as a runtime framework for JavaScript. It operates across various platforms like Windows, Linux, and MacOS, specializing in server-side development and scalable networking applications. A signifying aspect is its asynchronous nature, all Node.js APIs are non-blocking, allowing servers to swiftly handle multiple tasks without waiting for API responses. This efficiency is further improved by Node.js’s notification system, allowing timely server-side responses from previous API calls.
6. PhoneGap (Apache Cordova)
PhoneGap, now known as Apache Cordova, is a cross-platform framework for mobile app development, that uses CSS, JavaScript, and HTML5. The name PhoneGap was developed with the idea of an app bridging the gap between web apps and phone-based native environments. It was initiated by engineers from Nitobi in 2008 to run web apps using the platform-native WebView in native environments. Apache Cordova offers a cloud service allowing developers to share apps during development for collaborative feedback, improving the overall development process.
7. NativeScript
NativeScript is a free tool that helps create apps that look and feel like native ones. It uses JavaScript to work with the same tools used for iOS and Android app-making. This means apps built with NativeScript perform just like those built directly for iOS or Android. It’s a top choice for developers seeking to write code that works on various platforms. NativeScript also allows developers to reuse existing plugins from NPM, making app development easier.
8. Appcelerator Titanium
Appcelerator Titanium, a no-cost app development platform, allows the building of native mobile apps across different platforms using JavaScript skills. Widely favoured, it produces apps that deliver native-like experiences on both iOS and Android devices. Titanium offers access to numerous native UI and non-visual components, like network and media APIs, improving app functionality. The platform has many community modules and premium support, making it easy to add third-party features to apps. Appcelerator Titanium continues to evolve, delivering a close-to-native experience through its evolving Titanium SDK.
9. Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch, an HTML5-based framework, excels in creating cross-platform mobile web apps, harnessing hardware acceleration for efficient performance. Developers utilise Sencha Touch to craft well-tested UI components and libraries, benefitting from native-looking themes across major platforms like Android, iOS, and more. Featuring 50+ customizable UI widgets, it supports Cordova integration for native API access and packaging. This framework, based on HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3, enhances mobile browser capabilities, offering rich animations, transitions, and flexible frameworks for various screen sizes. Merged with Ext JS, Sencha Touch becomes a cross-platform solution for building data-rich cross-platform web and mobile applications.
10. Corona SDK
Corona SDK stands out as a potent cross-platform framework for making 2D mobile apps across various platforms, including Kindle and Windows. Built on Lua programming, it offers speed and robustness, featuring OpenGL hardware acceleration for superior graphic and animation capabilities. This versatile tool allows developers to create games, educational apps, and utility tools for mobile and desktop systems. Apps developed using Corona SDK can be distributed across iOS, Android, Kindle, Apple TV, Android TV, macOS, and Windows platforms, making it an efficient and adaptable choice for mobile app development across different devices.
Advantages Of Cross-Platform Development Frameworks
1. An Opportunity To Reach Maximum Target Audience
With cross-platform technology, you can target both iOS and Android platforms, by building an application that suits all platforms. By this, a delay of an application at one platform will not affect the others. Alternatively, by this method, you can gather multiple feedbacks which are more valuable and focus on improving your application.
2. Reduced Development Cost
The Multiplatform Development Framework is based on the idea of writing code that will be implemented on all platforms. This reusable code and agile app development reduces the expenses of the development along with maintenance since the single team will be responsible for all versions of the application.
3. Access To Native Features
Through plugins and APIs, a multi-platform mobile app development framework allows access to native device features and capabilities. Developers can take advantage of device features such as cameras, GPS, accelerometers, and others to improve app performance and user engagement.
How To Select The Ideal Cross-Platform App Development Framework For Your Project?
Developing a cross-platform mobile app involves choosing the right cross-platform framework. When you’re looking for a cross-platform app development company, consider various aspects. These include expenses such as the cost of mobile app development, the skill set of the team, user satisfaction, the time required for development, and many more. Evaluate the strengths of programming languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, and others. Check if the company you’re selecting regularly updates their cross-platform framework with bug fixes, security improvements, and new updates. This shows their commitment to staying updated with changing mobile systems.
Final Thoughts
Through this guide, we provide you with a list of the 10 best cross-platform mobile app development frameworks that you should consider. With the comprehensive guide, we covered the advantages of cross-platform frameworks and also how you should select the ideal cross-platform app development framework for your project.
However, if you still have certain doubts or are not able to decide which framework is suitable for your application, you need not worry! Our team at Siddhatech has the expert knowledge to identify the right framework as per your requirements.
If you are looking for a mobile app development company in India to turn your app ideas into reality, feel free to contact us.