The 5 best development tools to create Cross-Platform Apps

Mobile apps have become a must for many businesses across various industries and choosing the right App Development approach is important to have a good result. To help you get started, we have conducted research to provide you with some interesting information about the Best Tools for Cross-Platform App development.

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In a recent post, we examined the main differences between a Native and a Cross-Platform approach to Mobile App Development.

The importance of the topic stems from the fact that there is an increased demand for Mobile App Development for businesses in every industry. But the questions to ask yourself are:

• which market should I target: Android or iOS?
• should I choose both or leave one out? What if I could develop an app for both platforms?

With this article, we will learn about Cross-Platform App Development and how it is helpful in leading more people to their business goals. In addition, we’ll also learn in detail about some excellent tools for this type of development.

According to Statista.com, some of the most widely used platforms for building Cross-Platform App in 2021 are:

1. Xamarin / Dot Net MAUI
2. Flutter
3. React Native
4. Cordova
5. Ionic

Let’s look in detail at the peculiarities of the different platforms.

Xamarin / Dot Net MAUI

Launched in 2012, Xamarin / Dot Net MAUI is Microsoft’s solution for the Cross-Platform (or Hybrid) Mobile Development and stands tall among mature frameworks globally. With shared .NET and C#-based code, developers can use Xamarin / Dot Net MAUI to write native Android, iOS, and Windows applications with native user interfaces and easily share the code across platforms.

It is a development tool that also provides a free starter version which includes uploading to the app store, monitoring, and app testing with the ability to perform virtual testing on more than 1,000 devices.

Flutter

Flutter is a framework from Google which gives developers the ability to create attractive and fast apps. It is a real toolkit that is used to build mobile, web, and desktop apps from the same code base.

The strength of apps made with Flutter is that they perfectly match the appearance of the systems for which they are intended. So it is used to create apps with dynamic UX and attractive UI.

React Native

React Native, as the name suggests, offers an intuitive native development platform based basically on React, a JavaScript library leveraged by mobile app developers to create intuitive User Interfaces.

React Native enables the development of apps that are compatible with Android, iOS, Web, and UWP. It’s a powerful framework that leverages the native code of the target operating systems. Another outstanding strength is support: React Native, in fact, is supported by a large community of developers from whom to leverage informative resources to solve problems in use.

Cordova

Cordova as well is an Open Source software distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.

It is a kind of Web App container executed locally: the Cordova application is in fact executed in a web view that occupies the screen of the device, while inside it the HTML and CSS are displayed and the JavaScript code is executed. To sum up, what Cordova does is provide as many “empty” apps as the number of platforms to be developed for, all to be filled with related HTML, CSS, and JS code.

Thanks to JavaScript, it is possible to access the APIs that allow interfacing with the native functionality of the device, accessing, for example, the address book, camera, or geolocation systems.

Ionic

As the abovementioned competitor tools, Ionic provides tools and services for the development of mobile, desktop, and web applications and is based on modern development technologies.

Originally created in 2013 it was born from the integration of the AngularJS world with Apache Cordova. However, the latest version has been completely rewritten and allows users to choose any UI framework, such as Angular, React, or Vue.js.

For many years it has been the leading solution for putting together a progressive and visually stunning Web app in a snap, thanks in part to an easy learning curve and a relevant amount of available plug-ins.

Which one to choose?

In a nutshell, we have seen what are the well-known features of the various tools to develop Cross-Platform Apps. But choosing the best technology for your project requires complex evaluations involving analyses of:

• app features and technical requirements
• characteristics and skills of the
• budget dedicated to the development phase and to the subsequent deployments and maintenance activities
• development time and required Time-to-Market
• flexibility, assessments of future evolutions of the market, technologies, etc.
• target platforms, target audience, user profiles, etc.

All these evaluations require experience and expertise so it is always recommended to talk to professionals who can best direct you to the most suitable solution for your project.

Contact us now to explore how we can help you with your next project.

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