Top 5 Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Frameworks

While many companies decide whether to opt for Android app development or build their business mobile app for iOS, there is always a third option – develop one app for multiple platforms with the help of cross-platform mobile app development technologies.

Cross-platform development allows businesses to expand to several most popular platforms among their customers, making their services more accessible and their customer services more effective.

The quick growth in popularity of cross-platform development has contributed to the emergence of diverse tools and frameworks that alleviate the development process of multiplatform mobile solutions. In this article, we’ve gathered the top 5 cross-platform mobile app development frameworks that can make the software development process much faster and with fewer mistakes.

Xamarin

The first top cross-platform framework worth mentioning is Xamarin. It’s a popular open-source framework used by software developers that code in C#. Xamarin has been a part of Microsoft’s development ecosystem since 2016.

Xamarin allows building  applications for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms, sharing and reusing over 90% of code between them. When building cross-platform solutions with Xamarin, software developers can opt for one of the development options – Xamarin.Native or Xamarin.Forms.

Xamarin.Forms is a UI framework with some reusable basic features that allow the quick building of a mobile app with one code base that will run on several platforms though with some generalized and basic functionality. Meanwhile, Xamarin.Native better suits the projects with demanding interfaces as mobile developers have to create separate UI versions for mobile apps depending on the platforms they’re intended for.

So what are the pros and cons of Xamarin app development and when to choose this framework for cross-platform mobile app development projects? Here is a short summary.

Xamarin advantages:

• Single technology stack – only C# is required to build a solid, multiplatform mobile app.
• Shared app code – with Xamarin, software developers can build apps with shared code that run on Android, iOS, and Windows platforms.
• Open-source solution – Xamarin allows adding various components that can effectively meet any project needs such as third-party web services, cross-platform libraries, UI controls, and more. It also supports Java, Objective-C, and C++ libraries.
• Easy maintenance – with Xamarin, it’s easy to deploy any changes or updates for the developed solution. Software developers only need to make changes in the source files for them to be applied in the app over all the platforms.
• Great technical support – Xamarin is developed and supported by Microsoft, therefore, the technology is actively developed and improved. Moreover, there is a strong online community that can always provide quick and clear answers on how to work with the framework.

Xamarin shortcomings:

• Not free for enterprises – Xamarin is considered to be a free solution for individuals and start-ups, though when it comes to enterprise development, companies are required to buy a license.
• Not the best solution for heavy graphics – Xamarin isn’t the best choice for building apps with demanding UX/UI. That’s because each platform has its own methods of the screen layout. Therefore, natively developed mobile apps would work better in this case.

Ionic

Ionic is a front-end open-source framework based on AngularJS that’s been in use since 2013. It’s widely utilized for developing effective cross-platform solutions as well as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) with the help of web technologies such as CSS, HTML5, and JavaScript.

The framework offers a rich set of various out-of-the-box features and tools that help software developers significantly speed up the development process while creating native-style mobile layouts and UI elements for Android and iOS platforms.

Ionic simply integrates with several front-end development frameworks, including Angular.js, Vue.js, and React.js, and uses Cordova and Capacitor as wrappers to access native platform features.

Let’s have a look at the main pros and cons of the Ionic framework.

Ionic pros:

• Support of the main JavaScript front-end frameworks and Cordova plugins.
• A rich toolkit of various tools, plugins, and UI components. Access to native features via plugins, e.g. fingerprint scanners, NFC, camera, push notifications, etc.
• It’s simple to learn and implement. Software developers need to know only Angular, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to start building cross-platform applications, avoiding more complex Java, Swift, or Objective-C.
• IDE Ionic Studio was created especially for building and prototyping multi-platform mobile apps with minimum coding.
• Use of a single code base for building iOS and Android apps.

Ionic cons:

• Debugging can be complicated due to unclear error messages.
• Ionic can have unstable builds and some performance hindrances as native plugins can conflict with each other.
• UI routing is rather complex, therefore, building in-app navigation can be challenging.
• The free Ionic version offers limited features and functionality.

React Native

When reviewing top cross-platform mobile development instruments, it’s impossible to ignore React Native. This Java-based mobile framework developed by Facebook is hugely popular among mobile software developers for its smooth and responsive UI, outstanding app load time, and development speed. Moreover, React Native helps reduce the codebase and saves many resources during the development process.

React Native utilizes a component-based approach for building UI elements and layouts, allowing software developers to build both simple and complex designs. Therefore, React Native is often used in large-scale projects.

The framework offers an extensive set of development components. The Core built-in and ready-to-use React Native components include some basic features as well as Android and iOS-specific ones which allow the creation of mobile apps with native-like performance. At the same time, software developers can simply add any third-party plug-ins and APIs once they lack React Native components in their project such as maps, payment systems, etc.

Here is a short outline of React Native benefits and drawbacks.

React Native pros:

• Use of one codebase for building iOS and Android mobile apps at the rate of up to 80% depending on the app’s complexity.
• The fast-reloading feature allows software developers to quickly see the implemented changes during the development process.
• React Native provides simple access to platform-native features such as GPS, cameras, fingerprint scanning, etc.
• It allows creating applications with a highly responsive interface and provides ready-to-use components for fast app development.

React Native cons:

• React Native is highly dependent on third-party libraries and it lacks consistency when releasing app updates.
• It’s not a full-fledged cross-platform framework, therefore, software developers still have to write separate code for Android and iOS when it comes to using native components.
• React Native debugging can grow into a complicated process, especially on Android.

Cordova / PhoneGap

Cordova, also known as PhoneGap is an open-source framework that uses standard web technologies such as CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript for building multi-platform software. The technology has been supported and developed by Adobe since 2011 and is widely used by software developers.

The framework has everything software developers need to build functional mobile apps that run on several platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows, BlackBerry, etc. For this, Cordova provides native plugins and containers for each mobile platform, allowing software developers to build feature-rich apps. The plugins include such elements as camera, media, network, storage, accelerometer, geolocation, and others.

Let’s have a quick look at Cordova’s main pros and cons.

Cordova pros:

• Cordova speeds up the software development process by allowing building one codebase for several platforms.
• The framework offers an extensive set of UI libraries for an improved viewing experience.
• It provides access to many device features for a native-like user experience.

Cordova cons:

• The framework lacks descriptive documentation.
• It’s not the best choice for hardware-intensive apps.
• No support for plugins that have hooks.

Flutter

The last but not least important cross-platform app development tool in our list is Flutter. Flutter is more than just a framework or a library, it’s an open-source cross-platform development kit (SDK) created by Google. Many software developers prefer Flutter as it’s a full-fledged SDK with various development instruments, including a rendering engine, UI widgets, resting and integration APIs, and much more.

For cross-platform development, Flutter offers using the programming language Dart that compiles into native code for mobile and desktop platforms without the necessity of any additional bridges. This significantly speeds up the app startup time and performance. Given this, Flutter also has a set of quick ready-made and customizable widgets that are used in building UI for various platforms, including Android, iOS, web apps, desktop solutions, and many others. Also, Flutter provides software developers with a set of debugging tools Flutter DevTools that help find any code and layout errors much faster.

While offering so many advantages, Flutter also has its shortcomings. Let’s have a quick look at Flutter development’s pros and cons.

Flutter advantages:

• Flutter is a quick-to-learn solution that allows software developers to build their solutions fast and simply debug them.
• No intermediate code representation is required for Flutter due to its Dart direct compilation.
• With Flutter, software developers can share both UI and UI code over multiple platforms.

Flutter drawbacks:

• Hot reload works only with Dart.
• It works well for small and medium cross-platform development projects but not for large-scale ones.
• Flutter apps are large and weighty.
• Dart isn’t the most popular programming language, therefore, it may be challenging to find software developers for the project.

Conclusion

In recent years, more and more companies have started opting for cross-platform mobile app development when building their business software applications. That’s because this software development approach allows businesses to quickly expand over several platforms at once. As a result, companies can effectively grow their customer base, improve their services, and, therefore, increase their revenues.

If you’re also considering building a cross-platform app for your business but have no idea what to start with, Scand can help you gather a solid tech stack for your software development project and find professional mobile developers with much experience in building cross-platform solutions. Don’t hesitate to contact us and start building your cross-platform business app today.