Best Cross-Platform Mobile Development Tools for 2020

Introduction

The demand for mobile application development has been rising continuously in the past decade. Now, an app is not a luxury but a necessity for businesses to grow. When any firm decides to develop an application, its initial requirement is that, the app should be usable over various platforms like Android, iOS or Windows. This is known as cross-platform development of applications. The main reason behind this demand of cross-platform app development is to cater to a maximum number of users.

What is WORA in cross-platform app development?

Write Once Run Anywhere (WORA) is a code which is written by developers only once in such a way that it can run on multiple platforms. So, from the developer’s point of view also, cross-platform app development is the best option as it saves time, money and increases productivity.

As cross-platform mobile development is gaining popularity, the number of cross-platform development tools available in the market are also increasing rapidly. So, before developing a good cross-platform app that works seamlessly on all platforms, the developers need to carefully analyse and select the best tools to develop such applications.

Selecting tools for cross-platform app development is based on the client requirements, the app’s requirements, and the functionalities offered by these tools. We have listed a few top cross-platform mobile app development tools that are favourite amongst our developers:

1) Flutter

Introduced by Google in December 2017, Flutter is an open source UI toolkit used for creating high performance mobile applications on Android and iOS. By using Flutter, developers can build smooth and native-like user interfaces.

Flutter pre-compiles the code to native code using an Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compiler to speed up the rendering of components. With a rich set of UI components and hundreds of inbuilt libraries, Flutter is not dependent on third party libraries. And with its hot reload functionality, developers can instantly check or test the changes on simulators without compiling the whole code again.

Though, Flutter does not support 3D Touch and its APIs for desktop apps are yet in the early stages, the popularity amongst developers for Flutter as a tool for cross-platform mobile development is rising steadily. The reason behind this is Flutter’s native-like user interface on both platforms (Android and iOS).

2) React Native

React Native created by Facebook is also an open source UI framework for developing cross-platform apps. One of the most famous frameworks, React Native works on the principles of a JavaScript library React.js. So, coding in React Native means writing JavaScript code which is easy and well known to all the developers.

Though unlike React.js that works with virtual Document Object Model (DOM), React Native renders native components via invoking native functions through a series of bridges. And as opposed to Flutter which direct complies the code in native language, React Native works in background process of native platform by calling JavaScript function which further calls native functions.

React Native can deliver native-like user interface and shorter development times as most of its code is reusable. Many tech giants like Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Walmart, and others have developed their apps using React Native.

3) Ionic

Ionic is an open source framework used to create hybrid mobile apps. It uses web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript for building applications. Designing and structuring in Ionic is based on AngularJS which makes the UI very rich.

As Ionic hybrid apps are built for speed and built on HTML5 framework, the apps are rendered via a Web View and they are not completely native. This restricts the apps from accessing the native functionalities directly. For this purpose, Ionic apps have to use wrappers like PhoneGap. For this reason, Ionic is best suited for developing apps with rich UI and limited calls to native APIs.

The best advantage of developing apps with Ionic is cost reduction. So, if multi-platform apps are to be developed under a restricted budget, Ionic is the answer. Developers with a knowledge of AngularJS can easily create a single app that will work on all platforms like iOS and Android.

4) Xamarin

Launched as an independent framework for cross-platform mobile app development in 2011, Xamarin was purchased by Microsoft in 2016. Xamarin, also an open source framework is one of the most used tools for multi-platform app development.

C# coding language is used to code in Xamarin and developers working on Microsoft platforms find it quite easy working with C#. The biggest advantage of using Xamarin is that it creates flawless UI and user experience as it provides strong design tools. And unlike React Native, it also supports CSS libraries. Xamarin also offers access to native APIs by using Xamarin plugins and NuGet package.

Another useful feature of Xamarin is its Test Cloud. With Xamarin Test Cloud, you can virtually test your mobile app on different mobile devices without actually buying them. Xamarin code is also compiled by an Ahead of Time (AOT) compiler.

5) Apache Cordova (PhoneGap)

Originally known as Apache Cordova, it was developed by Nitobi. But Adobe purchased Nitobi and renamed Cordova as PhoneGap in 2011. Later, Adobe released an open source version of PhoneGap and renamed it again to Apache Cordova.

Just like the other tools mentioned above, PhoneGap is also used for cross-platform mobile application development. With PhoneGap, developers can create apps using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. But what makes PhoneGap different from other app development tools is its cloud solution. The cloud solution offered by PhoneGap lets its users directly build the app on cloud. This saves developers from downloading and maintaining different SDKs on their device since all SDKs are maintained on cloud.

Once an app is developed, it is possible to share the app with the whole team to obtain reviews or feedback. This feature to collaborate with the whole team takes PhoneGap one step ahead from its competitors.

Wrapping it up

These are some of the best cross-platform development tools we have listed for you. These can be used based on factors like app’s requirements, client’s requirements, budgetary restrictions, developer’s knowledge to code using various languages etc.

At Sunflower Labs, our experts have been developed a lot of cross-platform applications for a long time now (you can check the list of apps that we have developed here) using the listed tools we just listed above. We choose the most suitable tool for app development after considering client requirements, functionality demanded by the app, and the suggestions given by our developers and various other factors. To build your own cross-platform mobile application for your business, get in touch with us and our experts will help you take it further.