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Cross-platform app development is becoming increasingly popular because of the multiple benefits it offers to modern developers. Given the wide acceptance of cross-platform development, more tools and frameworks began to flood the market. The massive number of cross-platform development tools makes the procedure for selecting the right one is challenging. That is why we take the time to review the top cross-platform development tools to help you choose the best option for your app project.

First of all, let's look at mobile app developments and the benefits that cross-platform frameworks offer.

What is a Framework?

Frameworks are unique platforms that help developers build apps faster without compromising quality. They consist of essential toolkits and other resources that expedites app development procedures. Most frameworks allow the developer to create apps for a single platform.

Introducing Cross-Platform Frameworks?

In contrast to the typical development framework, cross-platform frameworks are designed to create apps for multiple platforms. In essence, the developer can create a single code and deploy the app on Android, iOS, and the Web without hassles. Developers love cross-platform frameworks because it enables them to create quality applications for multiple platforms faster than before.

Why Choose Mobile Cross-Platform Framework?

Here are some reasons why developers prefer cross-platform development frameworks.

Cost-Efficiency: It lowers the overall costs of multi-platform app development projects.

Saves Time: Allows developers to create apps for multiple platforms faster and expediting the time to market.

Easy Code Management: Because a single code is deployed to create apps on multiple platforms, the procedure for updating and maintaining the code base is more manageable.

Hybrid App Benefits: Hybrid apps offer a seamless experience on all mobile platforms because the backend functions of hybrid apps are similar.

The Best Cross-Platform Frameworks

The leading five cross-platform development frameworks in the world today str listed in the table below.

Now let's take some time to review each of these cross-platform mobile app development frameworks.

React Native

React Native is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks for cross-platform app development. It's an excellent option for creating mobile apps for Android, iOS, and the Web from a single codebase.

Developers adopted React Native quickly after its release as an opensource framework in 2015. It has since evolved as a leading cross-platform development framework in the world today. The developers that use React Native for cross-platform app development is increasing continuously.

The Benefits of React Native

Below are the benefits of React Native.

Inexpensive: Several factors such as code reusability help cut down development costs considerably. You can simply write a code and deploy it to multiple platforms, thereby reducing development time, efforts, and expenses.

Active Community: Like most open-source platforms, React Native is community-driven. The active community of React Native gives developers access to community-based support, documentation, tutorials, and sample codes. Members of the community are open to helping other developers that need assistance.

High Performance: React Native framework is known for its high-high performance apps. Factors such as Native Controls. Modules and separate threads for UIs and APIs work together to enhance React Native apps' performance. React Native can communicate with native Android and iOS components through native APIs, reducing the need to use processor power for interpretations.

Enhance Stability: This framework uses unique data binding technology to prevent the parent data from getting affected by a child component. This feature enhances the stability and security of an app. For instance, it would restrict updates by unauthorized components.

Support for Third-Party Plugins: React Native provides support for plugins from third-parties like Native Modules and JavaScript Modules. These third-party modules are useful for adding unique features such as Map to app development projects.

Flutter is a Google-owned opensource framework for creating mobile user interfaces and made available to the public at no cost. It allows you to create native apps with a single codebase and deploy to Android and iOS platforms.

Flutter presently supports only Dart language, which is excellent for front-end development such as apps for the web and mobile devices. The platform consists of a framework, an SDK, app development toolkits, and UI elements that are reusable.

Benefits of Flutter

Below are the benefits of Flutter

Reduces Development Costs: Flutter provides developers with the tools to develop high-quality apps, save time, and minimize costs.

Native App-Like Performance: Although Flutter apps communicate directly with the machine code, it works flawlessly. It differs from native apps because it does not need an interpreter.

Web Apps: Flutter has been used to create mobile apps, offline browser apps, and web-based applications since its inception. However, a new version known as Flutter Web was released in 2019, which is better suited for web apps development.

Support for Dart: Flutter supports the Dart programming language, which is beginner-friendly, powerful, and uses simplified Syntax. Its simple design makes it an excellent language for both beginners and expert developers.

Adobe Systems is the present owner of Cordova after the 2011 purchase and rebranding of Nitobi, the platform's original creator. Cordova is an application development framework that was open-sourced by Adobe. The platform uses JavaScript. HTML5 and CSS to create hybrid apps for Android and iOS platforms.

Cordova apps are not entirely native nor web apps. However, they can leverage the power of APIs to access native app functions. In essence, Cordova creates apps by combining hybrid development with elements of native codes.

The Benefits of Cordova

The benefits of Cordova are discussed below:

Expedites Multi-Platform App Development: This platform allows developers to create hybrid apps that work on multiple platforms such as iOS, Desktops, Android, and the Web. Cordova empowers developers to perform tasks faster than ever.

Leverage JavaScript: Cordova uses JavaScript, HTML and CSS3 to create apps. Therefore, developers can leverage the power of JavaScript to create novel functions for their apps without having to learn a new programming language.

Access to Add-Ons: Cordova developers have unfettered access to community add-ons. These are useful resources that contain multiple libraries, frameworks, and other tools optimized for Cordova.

Hassle-Free Media Management: Cordova offers tools that simplify the management of application media files. Developers can integrate CSS and query media content without hassles

Ionic, which was initially built on AngularJS and Apache Cordova. The platform was later revamped as a set of web components allowing options to select a preferred framework like React, Angular, or VU.js. A feature that enables the use of Ionic components without a user-interface was added to the latest release.

The Benefits of Ionic

Below are the benefits of Ionic.

Uses HTML and CSS: It is easy to catch up with Ionic development because it uses JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. These are everyday skills among developers. As such, learning a new language before using this framework is not necessary.

The Programming Language: With Ionic, the developer can use a single programming language to create apps for different platforms such as iOS and Android. Therefore, there is no need to learn multiple languages before deploying apps on additional platforms.

Plugins: Developers on Ionic can leverage a wide array of plugins to enhance their application development in various ways. Third-party plugins can be integrated into app development projects seamlessly.

More Platforms: Ionic apps works on Android, iOS, and Windows operating systems.

Support for AngularJS: The integration of AngularJS into Ionic creates value for programmers since it is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks. However, developers have the option to select another supported framework for Ionic development.

Xamarin is another cross-platform application development framework that uses C# for development. This is in direct contrast to many other frameworks that depend on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Xamarin offers a runtime that works on Android, iOS, and Windows. Typical Xamarin apps have a look and feel of native mobile apps. Xamarin creates C# codes that can access native features of an app platform.

The Benefits of Xamarin

Xamarin offers the following benefits:

Visual Studio Compatible: The fact that Xamarin integrates seamlessly with the powerful Visual Studio IDE is an added advantage. It allows developers to create quality native codes that enhance app performance.

App Logic Sharing: This feature allows developers to write a single code and deploy it across multiple platforms.

UI Layout: Provides an option to select a UI layout. This is an excellent feature that empowers developers to create apps with a beautiful and functional user interface.

Test Cloud: The test cloud feature allows the developer to test apps in real-time. They can simulate apps in various devices and access detailed reporting systems that help monitor performance and fix bugs.

Component Store: Xamarin gives developers access to a wide array of development resources such as themes, controls, UIs, charts, and lots more.

A Final Note

Cross-platform development frameworks are useful tools that add value to mobile apps development projects. Since there are many options out there, the procedure of choosing the most appropriate framework can be overwhelming. This article would help you review the top frameworks to select the best one for your app development project.

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best cross platform development frameworks

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The best cross platform development frameworks

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This article compares the best fiver cross platform development frameworks available in the market.

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What Does Cross-Platform Development Mean?

Cross-platform development is the practice of developing software products or services for multiple platforms or software environments. Engineers and developers use various methods to accommodate different operating systems or environments for one application or product.

Techopedia Explains Cross-Platform Development

The idea of cross-platform development is that a software application or product should work well in more than one specific digital habitat. This capability is typically pursued in order to sell software for more than one proprietary operating system, such as to accommodate use on both Microsoft and Apple platforms. With the development of mobile devices and other kinds of platforms, as well as the proliferation of open-source technologies like Linux, more kinds of cross-platform development have emerged.

Some of the fundamental strategies for cross-platform development include compiling different versions of the same program for different operating systems, or in other cases, the use of sub-tree files to apply or fit the product to different operating systems. Another major approach is to make the program abstract at certain levels in order to accommodate different software environments. Software like this can be said to be "platform agnostic" in that it doesn't value or support one platform over another. Developers can also use application programming interfaces (APIs) to adjust a piece of software to a specific platform.

In general, cross-platform development can make a program less efficient. For example, it can require redundant processes or file storage folders for the various systems that it's supposed to support. It may also require that a program be "dumbed down" to accommodate less sophisticated software environments. However, in many cases, the makers of software figured out that the limitations of cross-platform development are worth dealing with in order to offer an application or product to a wider set of users.

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What is Cross-Platform Development? - Definition from Techopedia

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Cross-platform development is the practice of developing software products or services for multiple platforms or software environments. Engineers and developers use various methods to accommodate different operating systems or environments for one application or product. The idea of cross-platform development is that a software application or product should work well in more than one specific digital habitat.

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Cross-platform Mobile App Development Company

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Looking to develop multi-platform apps? Rishabh Software is a leading cross-platform app development company that enables businesses worldwide with intuitive solutions.

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TL;DR: There are so many decisions to make when it comes to mobile app development. From the call to go with Cross-Platform "over Native" to then weighing up the pros and cons of Flutter and React Native: here is how the Innovaccer mobile team made the all-important decisions when going mobile.

Introduction: The transition from designing web platforms to building mobile platforms is not as easy as flicking a switch. In fact, the reality is in stark contrast to what it seems to the eye - and mental shift becomes as essential as the design shift while making this paradigm change.

Building mobile applications in the exact same way as one would go about designing web applications will result in a poor user experience. Hence, it is incumbent upon us as mobile-first evangelists to dig deep into the available solutions and pick the right one for our team and product.

It's been two years now since we began, and we are proud to say that we are now "fluttering" our way to success with cross-platform mobile development and the creation of four mobile apps (Android and iOS) and one production ready, fully responsive web app. This is our journey to mobile app development.

Question #1: Native Or Cross-Platform?

Our story began in 2019 when we started looking to replicate our success on web platforms over to mobile platforms and searching for the best approach to do so.

The first question we had to answer was whether to go with Native or Cross-Platform app development. For this, there is no "one size fits all" answer, and our decision hinged on the following factors:

User Demographics: There are markets where a certain type of OS (for example, Android or iOS) dominates. Since we wanted to build applications for the US market, we found that though iOS leads the race, Android was not far behind (the ratio being 60:40). So, we had to take both operating systems into account while making a decision. In the case of Native development, there is this massive overhead of writing the same code in two different frameworks. This definitely tempted us to take the Cross-Platform plunge.

Product Requirements: The choice between Native and Cross-Platform also boils down to what features you want to build. Native Apps are well suited if you want to extensively use the smartphone's hardware (like camera, Bluetooth, maps, et al.). If you're just creating the same user interface and functionality on two separate platforms, then Cross-Platform was certainly going to reduce the time to market. With a growth mindset, this battle was also won by Cross-Platform frameworks.

Performance: Traditionally, Cross-Platform frameworks have been considered low on performance in comparison to Native development, but we noticed that React Native and Flutter were bridging this gap.

Cost: Cross-Platform applications typically reduce the cost to almost half compared to traditional Native development.

Documentation And Community Support: It was a no-brainer that Native development has better support available, but after some research, we realized that React Native and Flutter were stealing the show here as well.

Question #2: Flutter Or React Native?

After carefully analyzing the risk-benefit ratio, we decided to take the plunge into Cross-Platform development. Then, there was the next dilemma: Flutter vs. React Native.

It was a tough fight, but Flutter stole the show for us. Apart from the reasons listed above, the fact that Flutter's architecture is well crafted to make it truly cross platform code was one of the main considerations. Having the same code base across Android, iOS, Web and Desktop Apps, was a superpower, we really didn't mind having!

As a cherry on top of the cake, here are some of the latest updates on Flutter, which give us all the more reason to have increased confidence in the software development kit's future:

Flutter web transitions out of Beta with Flutter 2.0

Support for desktop apps on MacOS and Linux

Google Pay's recent migration to Flutter

Toyota announced that all of its infotainment systems will be built on Flutter.

Question #3: What Are The Results?

After almost two years of trial and error, experimentation, and innovation, what is the verdict? We are pleased to report that with Flutter, our team has achieved:

Four mobile apps (Android and iOS) at 2x the speed of Native development

A production ready, fully responsive web app (with 95% of the code being same as that of the Mobile App)

One-click deployment of Flutter apps

Full HIPAA compliance in all products

Unit and Integration testing in Dart

It is safe to say that our team of six are now full-fledged Flutter fanboys and that we are very excited to share further details on how we have reached these milestones. Stay tuned for the next blog.
This article is written by Harshit Kohli and Rahul Gaur. Harshit is the Engineering Manager Mobile at Innovaccer and describes himself as a "technology evangelist with a passion for creating scalable solutions." Rahul is the Director of Engineering - Frontend, and often explores different programming languages, projects, and frameworks. Post-Script / Appendix:

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Fluttering To Success With Cross-Platform Development

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TL;DR: There are so many decisions to make when it comes to mobile app development. From the call to go with Cross-Platform "over Native" to then weighing up the pros and cons of Flutter and React Native: here is how the Innovaccer mobile team made the all-important decisions when going mobile.

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While the trends and fads of the market keep changing ever since trade was invented, one thing stays true: to be popular, you have to be accessible. The more users can reach and try your products, the more of them will choose it at the end. For developers, the key to that is making the product accessible for various operational systems. That is why we strongly believe it's smart for both businesses and programmers to look into cross platform mobile development.

Why get into cross platform mobile development?

As of fall of 2022, almost sixty percent of population use the Internet on their mobile devices actively. No wonder: not only mobile phones are with us all the time, but the Internet providers keep constantly increasing the area coverage and the speed. What does this mean to businesses? First of all, while a desktop application might have been enough in the past, that ship has long sailed now.

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According to Statista, over 98 percent of smartphones in the world use either Android or iOS as their main operational system. Therefore, it's only natural most companies crave to satisfy the fans of both of these giants. It's a lucrative field, too: according to predictions, the revenues from mobile applications will surpass 500 billion dollars by 2022. Why create native iOS or Android software, when you can create something to accommodate them both by doing half the work?

Cross platform mobile development has multiple advantages for a developer. First of all, it allows you to reuse a significant account of code, meaning there's less time and effort to put in. This makes the production both cheaper and faster. For a business, less time spent in development also equals to an earlier release - and, in turn, quicker profits. In addition to that, releasing one cross platform app instead of multiple native apps lets them save on marketing.

Nevertheless, there are a few cons as well. The platforms you're developing for might sometimes have different levels of feature support, which will put certain limitations to the user experience. If you choose to use a cross platform mobile development framework, you might also find out that not every tool available in them can be used on a certain platform. These compatibility issues might make you turn to native Android or iOS development tools.

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Native and cross platform app development: the difference

In the case of Windows Mobile, iOS and Android app development, each platform has something called a software development kit (SDK for short). Usually, it contains a compiler, a debugger and other development tools. In most cases, it also prefers some programming languages over others. For example, Android mainly supports Java, and most iOS development tools use Swift or Objective-C. Using an SDK, you can create an app which will be native to that specific platform.

Now, how do we do cross platform mobile development? The first way is by using an application programming interface (API), which acts as an intermediary between the code and the operating system. This can be achieved with an integrated development environment (IDE), usually coming from a third party.

The second way is also known as the hybrid approach. Why? Because it contains both mobile and web development techniques. Basically, you use HTML5 and CSS to code the graphic user interface (GUI), and wrap it inside a WebView container found in the SDK. WebView allows you to manipulate the user experience and allows them to use the functionalities of the hardware (e.g., the camera of their smartphone) to a certain limit.

However, some actually claim that hybrid programming is not a type of cross platform mobile development, and the only quality they both have is shareable code. The design part of the hybrid app has the advantages of a cross platform one, but the control elements are usually native still. You should also remember rendering CSS and HTML5 eats up a ton of resources of central and graphics processing units. This means the app will drain the users device battery much faster.

The best cross platform mobile development frameworks

The main advantages of cross platform mobile development are not only increased accessibility of your app: it also optimizes the processes of testing and maintenance. For your first steps, we'd advice you to go with specialized frameworks. Having a specific toolset to guide will smooth the learning curve. Now, let's see your best choices.

Xamarin

Xamarin is a Microsoft cross platform development framework that allows 75-90 percent of the code to be shared between different systems. The coding language Xamarin uses is the Microsoft-developed C#. The framework is also free and open source: there are over sixty thousand active contributors as of now. It is, however, not just meant for cross platform mobile development, and works just as well for desktop applications.

By supplying the tools needed for mobile app development, it extends the .NET development platform. What exactly does it contain? Well, first of all, you get the base framework that lets you access the native features. In addition to that, there's a wide selection of libraries and extensions for the code editor (e.g., for syntax highlighting). You can also use the packages available to .NET users. Using the ahead-of-time compiler lets you avoid some performance issues, too, as the app you design will run directly in the hardware of the mobile device.

React Native

React Native, developed and presented by Facebook in 2015. It works pretty much identically to React, but is mobile-oriented. This also means you get to write your code in JavaScript without any need to learn the specific coding languages a platform might require (Java, Swift, or Objective-C). According to annual StackOverflow surveys, JavaScript has been the most popular programming language for six years in a row now. Talk about a quick pick-up!

You can use React Native for developing apps for iOS and Android. In fact, the team at Facebook first used it for its own cross platform app called Ads Manager. React Native is also oriented to creating the best user interface (UI) for mobile devices. Thus, it's a great choice when you need high responsiveness and intuitive use. JavaScript is able to interact with the native environment asynchronously, which also speeds up the loading.

Flutter

Initially released by Google in 2017, Flutter is the youngest of the bunch presented here. However, just like Xamarin, it is more than just a cross platform mobile development framework. You can also use it to develop for Google Fuchsia, Mac, Windows, Linux, Web, and even embedded systems. What's unique to Flutter is the programming language: it uses Dart, which, just as the Flutter itself, was developed by Google. Among the famous clients of the framework are Realtor.com and The New York Times.

Flutter has received praises due to its hot reload feature, allowing the developer to instantly review the changes made by the most current updates. There is no need to restart the application after editing its source code: the effect will be shown immediately in the Flutter framework. This makes it easier to experiment, add new features, and fix small bugs in your program.

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The finishing remarks

The bottom line is, it's definitely worth to take up cross platform app development. While it has a few weak spots, it also has clear perks to both business owners and developers. According to Glassdoor, it's also a career path that allows its professionals to lead rather comfortable lives. Feeling excited? Then roll up your sleeves and get down to work - that nice salary won't earn itself!

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Cross Platform Mobile Development Explained: What, Why, and How

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While the trends and fads of the market keep changing ever since trade was invented, one thing stays true: to be popular, you have to be accessible. The more users can reach and try your products, the more of them will choose it at the end.

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Games coming out for a specific console are a thing of the past. Players want to connect online using a variety of hardware. Cross-platform game development allows your team to code once and release everywhere.

Cross-platform game development requires a variety of software tools to build the games from common code and art assets. Developers all work in one code base. Game engines, software libraries, scripting languages, and software development kits (SDKs) create platform-specific elements for the game to be released.

Cross-platform game development has serious benefits. Studios don't need to maintain separate and specific codebases for each platform. Maintaining one codebase can make it more stable and easier to maintain. It also creates an opportunity to deliver your game into the hands of the most players. Users only need to purchase the title for one specific system to have access on other devices.

Cross-platform game development also helps with upgrades. Teams no longer need to go in and make a change on two or more codebases. They can simply make a change and deploy it to all platforms at once, saving both time and money.

However, there can be some disadvantages. Native platform development offers an exclusive integration with the platform, usually resulting in faster performance. Non-native code can suffer delays. It is important to focus on the user experience and test on all platforms.

The best way to ensure your game reaches the most people is to create it for cross-play. So, what software do you need for cross-platform game development?

Game engines provide a framework that can support 2D and 3D game development.

Unreal Engine is considered one of the most powerful game engines out today. It comes with a visual scripting tool - Blueprint - to design visual elements of the game that can be used with different hardware. This is helpful for those who don't want to dive into C++ code. For cross-platform game development, Unreal requires some setup. You need to separately install SDKs for each intended platform.

Unity is another popular game engine. Many indie dev studios prefer it because it offers a simpler setup, especially for cross-platform game development. When you install the engine, you simply choose the version and targeted platforms. The required SDKs are automatically downloaded. Unity also offers a variety of 2D elements that are optimized for mobile development.

Both Unreal and Unity game engines can be used to develop mobile, console, AR/VR, and PC games. Many plugins for cross-platform game development are available from their marketplace or on GitHub. This include scripts, 2D/3D assets, animations, audio, and more.

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GameMaker Studio is described as incredibly user friendly. Users can just point and click to make elements. This game engine is somewhat limited in its functionality but works well for mobile game development. There is a free version available, but for cross-platform development, you need the professional or master versions.

LibGDX is a free open source Java game development library. It provides an API that works across Windows, Linux, MacOS, and mobile. It is not as powerful or robust as Unity or Unreal but provides a framework for mobile and web game development. It doesn't come with a GUI, so you will need to check your assets in the game environment.

Godot Engine is another free option for both 2D and 3D game development through MIT. It comes with built-in nodes, common tools, and a visual editor. This can help speed up the cross-platform game development process. Godot has a large user community that is actively fixing bugs and creating new features.

Solar2D (formally known as Corona) is a 2D game engine simulator. It is a Lua based game engine and adapts to many resolutions and ratios. Lua is known for being easy and it allows teams to quickly add in elements with just one line of code. But this game engine does have limited deployment options.

Advanced game development, like cross-platform development, requires the right tools. Teams need to track and mange changes to files, plus manage releases and patches for each platform.

Version control is an essential to store, iterate, and manage the wide range of digital assets required for cross-platform game development. It also can help you deliver the extremely large files associated with game development to remote team members around the globe.

What Tool Do Top Teams Use? Helix Core

Helix Core - version control from Perforce - is trusted by 19 of the top 20 game dev studios. It's because it allows studios to streamline builds and manage all their assets, not just code. If you are embarking on cross-platform game development, Helix Core can organize the wide range of assets needed for specific platforms.

Plus, it has features - like Perforce Streams - that allow teams to seamlessly manage multiple releases and components across platforms. Learn how industry-leader Sumo Games uses Streams >>

Binary files, audio files, video files, code, and more can all be managed inside a Helix Core depot. Then these assets can be combined and released for a variety of hardware.

Helix Core Scales for Cross-Platform Development

Using Helix Core ensures that your large files are delivered around the globe, fast. With Perforce Federated Architecture, you can set up servers where you need them. For example, you could set up build servers, on-premise or in the cloud, to handle your builds. Or install them near a group of remote team members to give them instant access to the files they need.

Helix Core integrates digital creators are already using - 3ds Max, Maya, and more. And it works with most popular game engines including:

See for yourself why so many studios choose Helix Core for cross-platform game development. You can start free for up to 5 users and 20 workspaces.
Learn more about your game development process.

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What You Need For Cross Platform Game Development | Perforce Software

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Games coming out for a specific console are a thing of the past. Players want to connect online using a variety of hardware. Cross-platform game development allows your team to code once and release everywhere. Cross-platform game development requires a variety of software tools to build the games from common code and art assets.