Top 10 Best Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks

Today, cross-platform app development frameworks demand has increased for building mobile applications. The primary reason behind the growing need for these frameworks is that cross-platform apps have a wider reach than native apps.

With the expansion of its popularity and reach, several cross-platform app development tools and frameworks started to float in the market, gradually and then all at once, along with every other mobile app development company investing in this attractive and advanced technology.

This blog post highlights the best cross-platform app development frameworks businesses must choose for software or app development, such as node.js, react, Flutter, PhoneGap, and others.

Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks — An Overview

“Cross-platform mobile app development” is an approach that enables developers to build mobile apps compatible with several operating systems and platforms (Android, iOS, Windows).

The following section provides an overview of the most widely used cross-platform app development frameworks for building mobile apps for iOS, Android, and other platforms. Our summaries include the programming languages these frameworks are based on and their main features and advantages.

Popular Cross-platform App Development Frameworks

Let’s have a quick overview of some of the best frameworks for cross-platform mobile app development to give an edge to your decision.

React Native

When it comes to cross-platform app development frameworks, it is not possible to miss React Native. This framework is built on JavaScript and employed in writing real code and delivers a native-like feel to mobile applications that work on Android and iOS. Due to its unique features, it is a preferred choice of developers. In addition, businesses also trust React Native as the right platform for their apps.

Programming language: JavaScript

Mobile apps: Skype, Bloomberg, Shopify

Key features:

• Being an open-source, cross-platform app development framework, React Native has a vast community that enables developers to get adequate support when running through their mobile app development projects.
• React Native is highly compatible with several third-party plugins, such as Google Maps.
• Thanks to the Fast Refresh feature, developers can immediately view the changes they made in their React components.
• You can develop mobile apps for different iOS and Android platforms, such as Android TV, macOS, tvOS, etc. In addition, React Native can be instrumental in developing immaculate applications for UWP and Windows as well.

Xamarin

Xamarin was released in 2011 and is now owned by Microsoft. It’s an open-source, cross-platform app development framework for building hybrid mobile apps. It uses the C# language and the .Net frameworks to develop apps across the platforms such as Android, iOS, and Windows.

Xamarin-based apps are compatible across multiple mobile platforms and provide the same performance and user experience as native solutions.

Programming language: Objective-C, Java, and C++

Mobile apps: UPS, Alaska Airlines, Academy Members (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences).

Key features:

• Xamarin supports the WORA (Write Once, Run Anywhere) that enables it reduces the time and cost of mobile app development for it and has a vast collection of class libraries.
• The developers see fewer run-time errors when working with Xamarin, as it offers compile-time checking.
• With Xamarin.Forms, developers can employ platform-specific UI elements to ensure a consistent look for their apps across different operating systems.
• It has a big community of app developers and other contributors.

Flutter

Google released Flutter in 2017. Flutter is a popular cross-platform app development framework for developing mobile, web, and desktop apps from a single codebase. It is a software development kit to assist expeditious Android and iOS app development.

It is also a fundamental method for developing Google Fuschia apps. Flutter framework offers apps that quickly and effectively run on multiple platforms with uniformity and dynamicity.

To build applications with Flutter, you will need to use Google’s programming language, Dart.

Programming language: Dart

Mobile apps: eBay, Alibaba, Google Pay

Key features:

• Flutter supports Google’s Material Design, a design system that allows developers to build digital experiences. You can employ multiple visual and behavioral widgets when developing your app.
• Flutter, a cross-platform app development framework, is a great choice for developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as it initiates a speedy development process cost-efficiently.
• Flutter’s hot reload feature lets you witness changes in your application as soon as you modify your code without recompiling it.
• Flutter does not need to update the UI contents manually, as it has a reactive framework. Flutter app Developers are just required to update the variables, and the UI changes will be visible after that.

Ionic

The ionic framework is a well-known cross-platform mobile development framework based on AngularJS. It is an open-source, cross-platform app development framework that was released in 2013 by Adam Bradley,

The main components of Ionics’s main version were Apache Cordova and AngularJS.

Programming language: HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS

Mobile apps: BBC (Children’s & Education apps), EA Games, T-Mobile.

Key features:

• As an open-source front-end framework, the developers can modify the code structure per the requirement.
• Ionic is based on a SaaS UI framework explicitly designed for mobile operating systems. It offers numerous UI components for developing robust applications.
• Many plugins are available to use the native features of the smartphone.
• Based on the SaaS UI framework, the ionic framework is specifically designed for mobile OS.

Native Script

This open-source mobile app development framework was released in 2014. NativeScript allows you to build Android and iOS mobile apps using JavaScript or languages that transpile to JavaScript, like TypeScript, and frameworks like Angular and Vue.js.

NativeScript passes as a fantastic free cross-platform framework based on JavaScript. It isn’t wrong to say that Native Script is preferable for developers looking for WORA functionality.

NativeScript also offers all native APIs, rendering the ability of the developers to reuse existing plugins straight from NPM into the projects.

Programming language: JavaScript, Angular, TypeScript.

Mobile apps: Strudel, Daily Nanny, Breethe.

Key features:

• Native Script yields beautiful, accessible, and platform-native UI, and that too without Web Views.
• It employs JavaScript, Angular, and TypeScript for programming purposes.
• Native Script lets developers quickly access native Android and iOS APIs.
• Native Script provides various plugins and pre-built app templates, eliminating the need for third-party solutions.

Sencha Touch

Sencha is a popular, robust, HTML5-based, cross-platform framework for developing mobile UIs and Web and Mobile apps via HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

As an enterprise-level SDK and development solution, Sencha/Sencha Touch focuses on the development of touch-based applications — for iOS, Android, Blackberry, and other platforms — that can take advantage of and leverage native device functions and APIs.

Programming language: ES6, HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS

Key features:

• It is recognized for providing built-in native-looking themes for all major platforms like Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry.
• It has an adequate agnostic backend data package for performing with data sources.
• It has 50+ in-built and customizable UI widgets apart from having a rich UI collection.