DEV Community: Avantika Shergil

Why Should You Hire Shopify Developers For Online Store Development?

Avantika Shergil — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 12:32:35 +0000

In 2010, the contribution of online sales is less than 5% of the total retail sales. After a decade, the total sales gets tripled to 18% and Covid-19 take this online sale to a whopping 44% of the total retail sales. We expect to see Ecommerce sales grow by 56% worldwide and reach $8.1 trillion by 2026.

The steep growth in Ecommerce sales suggests that people are increasingly shopping online. It makes entrepreneurs start a new venture- an online store to make the most out of the opportunity. That’s why ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, and WooCommercebecame popular E-commerce stores that allow entrepreneurs to start selling online without much ado.

The best thing about an E-commerce platform like- Shopify is it makes online store development a breeze with in-built online selling features, templates, marketing, payment, shipping, and more. Shopify is leading the Ecommerce platforms market because it facilitates getting the online store up and running with minimum configurations, provides flexibility to choose the catalog, and plenty of features.

As more than 4.2 billion stores are built using Shopify, it indicates that building an online store using Shopify makes perfect sense. If the figure interests you, you might be looking for starting an E-commerce business with Shopify. Following a couple of steps and avoiding a few mistakes help you unlock the new possibilities for Ecommerce store development using Shopify assistance.

However, operating the store using the Shopify platform is easier for the non-tech person, but the Shopify E-commerce store development requires hiring Shopify developers. If you are unsure about hiring them, look at the top reasons explaining why you need to hire professional Shopify developers to create an online store. Let’s dive in!

5 Reasons to Hire Shopify Developers for Online Store Development

Are you skeptical about hiring Shopify developers as DIY trend is skyrocketing? If so, look at these top reasons to know why it’s worthwhile to hire Shopify developers to get build an online store that help you to get in touch with your targeted buyers and run your business at a higher scale.

Take Care of Store Branding

The brands heavily invest in engineering unique brand experiences consistently everywhere to impress customers at first sight.

Shopify developers act as brand strategists that help online retailers create a unique brand identity with in-depth market research, competition analysis, design styles, and more. Also, with their experience they can develop branded landing pages, product configurators, interactive elements, and other customizations that enhance the overall brand experience and make your store stand out from the competition.

Consistency across different touchpoints is essential for effective branding. Dedicated Shopify experts can integrate your branding elements across various channels, such as email marketing, social media, web and mobile apps. They can synchronize the logo, typography, color combinations, messaging, and overall brand experience, ensuring a cohesive and recognizable presence across all customer touchpoints.

Help you Design an Impressive Store

The design creates an indelible impression on the users’ minds when they visit the online store. Shopify developers play a crucial role in designing an impressive online store that captures the attention of visitors and drives conversions. They can customize existing themes or create custom themes from scratch to align with your brand's aesthetics and requirements.

Shopify developers can ensure that your store design is optimized for different screen sizes and devices as significant number of users access online stores from mobile devices. They can integrate visually stunning elements such as high-quality product images, videos, and banners that showcase products in the best possible way. They can also optimize images for faster loading without compromising quality.

Build Store that’s Optimized for High Conversion

Optimizing the store for high conversion means building a customer-centric store and rendering updates after regular intervals to ensure consistency in sales and ROI.

When you hire Shopify developers, they can help in making extensive changes to the store’s design and add new functionalities. As Shopify themes are built using JS, HTML and CSS that makes it easy for them to edit code and make technical changes. Here, Shopify’s vast ecosystem of apps and extensions also helps in enhancing store's functionality and design with seamless integration of the right apps to add features such as live chat, product reviews, social media integration, and more.

As slow loading times can significantly impact conversion rates. Shopify developers can optimize your online store's performance by minimizing code, compressing images, and leveraging caching techniques. It proportionately increases the conversion rate of your online ecommerce store.

Building trust is essential for boosting conversions. Shopify developers can integrate trust signals such as customer reviews, security badges, and SSL certificates to instill confidence in users. They can also implement secure payment gateways and robust data protection measures to enhance the security of your online store.

Provide Support All the Time

Shopify ecommerce development is not a one-time process. Instead, it requires support from the dedicated team continuously. That’s where Shopify developers would help you in different ways.

Shopify developers can leverage analytics tools to track user behavior, identify bottlenecks, and uncover opportunities for optimization. By analyzing data on user flows, cart abandonment rates, and conversion funnels, they help businesses make data-driven decisions to improve the overall results.

Furthermore, best Shopify developers can conduct A/B tests to compare different variations of design elements, layouts, CTAs, and other factors that impact sales. Through rigorous testing and iteration, they can identify the most effective strategies to optimize sales and continuously improve your store's performance.

Let you Focus on what Really Matters

As an online retailer, you need to focus on inventory, customer relationships, marketing, and logistics, which takes a lot of time. When you hire Shopify developers, they help you handle these tasks seamlessly with CRM, inventory, Shopify marketing tools, logistics, and other integrations. Furthermore, they take care of all the technical aspects that allow you to better engage with users and bolster customer relationships.

For instance, personalization feature implementation by Shopify developers helps in delivering individualized experiences to every user. The automated personalized product recommendations, targeted offers, and customized messaging based on previous browsing and purchasing behavior, relieves the retailers from personalization matter. They can invest the same time in studying which tailored content or campaign is bringing optimal results so that they are tweaked accordingly.

Also Read : eCommerce Store Can Withstand Shopping Cart Abandonment

Convinced about Hiring Shopify Developers?

Shopify developers possess the technical expertise and experience necessary to design, customize, and optimize your store for high conversion in reduced time and cost. Also, they assist with ongoing technical support and maintenance tasks, ensuring your store runs smoothly. Conclusively, hiring Shopify development company from online directory such as TopDevelopers.co can be highly beneficial for businesses that want to create or optimize their online store on the Shopify platform.

When considering to hire Shopify developers, it's important to evaluate their relevant expertise, experience, portfolio, proven track record of success, and positive client feedback to drive winning outcomes. Ultimately, hiring the best Shopify developers can be a valuable investment to create an impressive, optimized, and successful online store. Start searching for the best Shopify developers.

Flutter Vs Xamarin- Which Is The Best Cross-Platform Development Framework?

Avantika Shergil — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 09:55:28 +0000

According to Persistence Market Research (PMR), the global cross-platform app development framework industry revenue is expected to total $120 billion in 2023. Over the next ten years, global demand for cross-platform app development frameworks is forecasted to rise at 16.8% CAGR.

The growing popularity and rising adoption of mobile phones are cited as the topmost reason for the increasing demand for cross-platform app development that facilitates writing the code once and then deploying it on multiple platforms. Thereby cross-platform development frameworks demand is also intensified, which enables mobile app development companies to build a mobile app that renders a native-like look and feel irrespective of the device it’s deployed.

However, not all cross-platform app development frameworks guarantee high performance, native-like UI, and more. in this blog, we will discuss two cross-platform development frameworks, Flutter and Xamarin that are used at scale. Before we dig deeper into side-by-side comparisons of both frameworks, we will understand these two frameworks in brief.

What is the Xamarin?

Xamarin is a popular cross-platform development framework that allows mobile app developers to build native mobile applications for iOS, Android, and Windows using a single codebase. It is an open-source framework owned by Microsoft.

It offers the advantage of code reuse, native performance, and access to platform-specific features, making it a popular choice for cross-platform mobile app development. it facilitates seamless integration with existing third-party libraries, test cloud, forms, and code sharing that takes development to the next level of convenience.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source UI framework developed by Google that allows Flutter app developers to build natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop platforms using a single codebase. It was first introduced in 2017 and has gained significant popularity among developers.

It provides hot reload, pre-built widgets, and access to native features, enables UI customization, and uses Dart programming language that makes Flutter suitable for mobile app development for startups, enterprises, and individuals. Expert Flutter developers can help if you are looking for a flexible and efficient framework to build high-quality applications across multiple platforms.

The one-to-one comparison of Xamarin vs Flutter: which is a better cross-platform development framework?

Flutter and Xamarin are the top cross-platform development frameworks that are leveraged at scale. Identifying which framework is the best for the business project requires analyzing side-by-side comparisons of Xamarin and Flutter based on various aspects. Let’s dive in!

Programming Languages

The underlying programming language on the top of which frameworks are built plays a vital role in mastering the framework at speed. See where Xamarin and Flutter stand at.

Xamarin: Xamarin uses C# as the primary programming language. It provides access to the .NET ecosystem and allows developers to leverage existing C# libraries and frameworks.

Flutter: Flutter uses Dart as the primary programming language. Dart is an object-oriented language developed by Google, which is known for its simplicity and ease of learning.

Result: Both underlying programming languages make it easy to hold a grasp on the respective frameworks. It’s a draw.

Cross-platform Development

The cross-platform framework’s capabilities define how design-rich, full-fledged applications can be built. These two frameworks’ capabilities would allow businesses to know which is the best fit.

Xamarin: Xamarin allows developers to build cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, and Windows using a single codebase. It provides native UI controls and access to platform-specific APIs that enable native-like app development. The app logic such as web service calls, input validation, and database interactions created using C# can be shared a maximum of 75%.

Flutter: Flutter also enables cross-platform app development for iOS, Android, web, and desktop platforms using a single codebase. It uses its own set of customizable UI widgets and provides access to native features through plugins.

Result: As Flutter is the future of cross platform development it clearly wins the race.

User Interface (UI)

The user-centered user interface engineering allows applications to gain maximum users’ attention and increase retention.

Xamarin: Xamarin provides native UI controls and allows the creation of platform-specific UI designs that adhere to each platform's guidelines (e.g., Material Design for Android, Cupertino for iOS).

Flutter: Flutter uses its own set of customizable UI widgets, which are rendered using Skia, a high-performance graphics engine. This allows Flutter apps to have a consistent UI across different platforms.

Result: Flutter provides a breadth of customization options that enable near-to-native-like app development. So, Flutter is the winner.

Performance

Presently, the instant gratification need has made users show zero tolerance for the app that’s taking more than three seconds to load. Take a look at which framework renders the best performance.

Xamarin: Xamarin apps offer native performance as they leverage platform-specific APIs and optimizations. However, there may be a slight overhead due to the runtime and bridge between C# and the native platform.

Flutter: Flutter apps are known for their fast performance due to the use of Skia for rendering and its efficient UI framework. Apps built with Flutter can achieve near-native performance as they compile to native machine code.

Result: Flutter takes a driver’s seat in building high-performance apps.

Development Productivity

When time-to-market the mobile application is less, development productivity is a great help that allows businesses to launch the app in the minimum time.

Xamarin: Xamarin provides excellent development productivity for skilled developers familiar with C# and the .NET ecosystem. It offers Visual Studio IDE integration, debugging tools, and extensive libraries and frameworks.

Flutter: Flutter offers high development productivity with its hot reload feature, allowing developers to see code changes instantly. The framework provides a rich set of pre-built widgets and a supportive developer community.

Result: It's a Draw in battle for development productivity between Flutter vs Xamarin.

Ecosystem and Community

The framework backed by a huge community of active developers is a boon for the mobile app developers as they get required assistance when required.

Xamarin: Xamarin has a mature ecosystem with a wide range of libraries, components, and plugins available through NuGet. It has an active developer community and is backed by Microsoft.

Flutter: Flutter is a boon for app developers because has a growing ecosystem with a rich collection of packages available through pub.dev. It has an active and passionate community, and its popularity has been rising rapidly.

Result: Flutter- being a new framework doesn’t have a sizeable community of developers as Xamarin, but it’s growing at speed.

Also Read : Flutter vs Kotlin: Which One Is Better For Cross-Platform App Development?

Which cross-platform app development framework would you choose - Xamarin or Flutter?

Xamarin and Flutter frameworks have their strength and weakness that makes them good for distinct project cases. The unavailability of in-depth knowledge of these two frameworks makes businesses confused as they choose which cross-platform app development framework for their development strategy. Realizing the need, the head-to-head comparison of Xamarin and Flutter is explained

However, ultimately, the choice between Xamarin and Flutter depends on various factors such as development team expertise, project requirements, target platforms, and personal preferences. Consider evaluating these factors to determine which framework aligns better with your specific needs.

Magento developers-keep these things in mind before hiring

Avantika Shergil — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 05:10:40 +0000

In the ever-expanding digital landscape, e-commerce platforms like Magento have gained extensive popularity in recent years for their versatility and trending features. With its flexible architecture, scalability and robust security measures, Magento has emerged as the most prominent choice for businesses and entrepreneurs alike. It not just offers the ability to create tailored online stores that drive sales through user-centric designs but also helps in curating seamless purchasing experiences.

Platforms like BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Shopify and Magento have emerged as key players in just a few years. They offer innovative and high-quality strategies in terms of cost, speed, support and maintenance. Magento, in particular, stands out by withholding a wide array of creative features and functionalities that enhance the entire online shopping experience. With Magento, businesses can benefit from product categorization, configurable discounts, promotion rules, multiple transaction options, and much more.

Magneto’s extensibility allows for hassle-free integration with third-party websites like Amazon, enabling entrepreneurs to attract a larger consumer base. Furthermore, Magento's flexibility empowers you to enhance your online store's functionality by incorporating widgets that enrich the front-end blocks. According to recent statistics, Magento powers over 239,000 websites globally, with a 7% market share among the top 100,000 e-commerce sites.

As the demand for e-commerce development continues to rise, Magento stands out as the leading platform due to its customization qualities, SEO-friendly nature and exceptional scalability. However, to ensure a successful Magento e-commerce venture, it is essential to engage the expertise of skilled eCommerce developers who can effectively navigate the intricacies and details of its development process.

Important factors to consider when hiring Magento developers

The process of finding the right developer can seem daunting as it requires careful consideration of certain factors that align with your business goals. It is highly important to have a clear understanding of your project requirements before diving into the pool of hiring talented Magento developers. Developing complex Magento applications demands a diverse skill set, both technical and non-technical. The importance of hiring Magento developers for developing your eCommerce store is invaluable to ensure successful, innovative and highly-interactive Magento solutions. Here are the key considerations to keep in mind when seeking to hire a Magento developer.

Technical expertise

One of the foremost factors to consider when looking for Magento developers is their technical expertise and skillset. A skilled developer should possess a strong background, especially in building large-scale e-commerce projects and stay up to date with the latest technologies and techniques. These skills aid in solving complex problems that may arise during the development process and delivering innovative solutions to make the Magneto development process hassle-free.

Each developer has their own specialization and areas of expertise, which can greatly benefit your business. You must look for developers who possess a deep understanding of the CMS for a smooth Magento development process. Along with that, they must possess the ability to adapt their skills and meet your project's requirements accordingly. Conduct thorough research to effectively assess their development expertise.

Critical thinking skills

In today's highly competitive e-Commerce market, skills like problem-solving and critical thinking are vital for Magento developers. They encounter various coding and design challenges during the Magento development project and their ability to think critically is essential in resolving issues quickly.

While certifications and technical skills are equally important, it is the Magento developer's creativity and critical thinking capacity is what that sets them apart. Your e-commerce website deserves unique features that stand out from the competition, making a developer's innovative mindset highly desirable. When hiring Magento e-commerce developers, you must prioritize their problem-solving abilities and creative thinking.

Communication skills

Effective communication is vital when hiring Magento developers for your project. It is essential to establish clear and uninterrupted communication channels with the Magento development firm from start to finish. Regular interaction with the project manager or lead is necessary to discuss suggestions and improvements. A competent developer will maintain consistent communication with clients, seeking feedback and making necessary adjustments. Responsiveness to calls, texts and emails aids in ensuring a seamless flow of communication.

Moreover, transparent communication instills a strong developer-client relationship, facilitating timely updates and addressing business needs effectively. Utilizing messaging tools like Skype, Basecamp, or Google Talk can enhance connectivity throughout the Magento development project process. Along with communication skills, professionalism is another indispensable quality that makes a huge difference in your project quality as well as timeline. Thus, you must cross-check with past recruiters and then hire potential Magento developers to ensure the highest quality of your Magento solutions.

Portfolio and testimonials

When hiring Magento development companies, it is vital to look beyond certain certifications and dive into their portfolios. A developer's portfolio provides valuable insights into their skills and expertise. It showcases their previous work and approach to website development. By hiring skilled Magento developers, you can leverage the platform's potential and drive your online business to new heights.

By carefully reviewing their portfolio, you can gauge their working style, professionalism and ability to deliver successful projects. Along with that, it acts as a testimony to their dedication and helps you determine if they are the right fit for your project needs. A thorough assessment of their portfolio will provide a clearer picture of the Magento development company's capabilities and suitability for your project.

Quality and pricing analysis

When considering to hire a Magento E-commerce developer, it's important to carefully analyze the cost and quality factors. Before seeking a quote, clearly define your store's features and functionalities, and consider any additional charges for after-service, support, and upgrades. While cost is a vital factor, compromising on essential functionalities may not be wise. Moreover, striking a balance between cost and quality is the key to curating a successful Magento E-commerce platform.

Conduct thorough cost analysis, assess payment options and customization fees, and ensure that your business needs justify the expenses. Remember, compromising on quality, consistency, or functionality can adversely impact your business and customers. With proper research and communication, you can hire Magento developers who are experienced and talented and offer cost-effective as well as flexible solutions. Last but not least, adherence to project deadlines is crucial when implementing high-quality Magento functionality. Developers should be able to plan their schedules and account for unforeseen events to ensure uninterrupted progress.

Additionally, post-development services, including updates, upgrades and bug fixes, should be clearly communicated, especially with freelance Magento developers. Regular updates and bug fixes help in improving user experience and make sure that your solution is up-to-date with the latest trends. It is important to define roles and responsibilities in the contract for dedicated resources. By addressing all these aspects, businesses can ensure timely delivery and ongoing support for their Magento projects.

Approaches to Hire Magento Developers

Choosing between dedicated and freelance Magento developers can be a tough and challenging decision, as each of these options comes along with its own pros and cons. However, when hiring dedicated developers, it's essential to consider factors such as skill level, commitment, pricing and security. Let us walk you through the three most popular approaches to hiring reliable and experienced Magento developers.

Dedicated Magento freelancer developers

Freelance developers bring a competitive edge due to their exposure to diverse projects, skillsets and challenging requirements. Dedicated Magento freelancers are well-suited for short-term as well as time-sensitive tasks. Additionally, hiring freelance Magento developers can provide you with a versatile skill set. However, it's worth noting that finding reliable freelance developers can be challenging, and they may not be readily available for urgent code modifications.

Online job boards for recruitment

Utilizing popular job boards can be an effective way to attract experienced web developers for your Magento project. While job boards offer a wide reach and the potential for finding full-time developers, it's crucial to note that they don't provide project management support. Moreover, in case of a developer leaving the project prematurely, you would need to find another suitable replacement by your own.

Magento development companies

When dealing with complex and high-visibility projects, it is advisable to collaborate with Magento development companies. These companies not only offer end-to-end e-commerce development services but also provide skilled Magento engineers.

By partnering with reputable e-commerce or Magento development companies, you can benefit from motivated developers who constantly update their skills. Additionally, such companies assist with project management, allowing product managers to focus on critical business matters. Moreover, these reliable Magento development companies prioritize data security and can provide suitable replacements if a developer leaves the project.

Winding up

Conclusively, the task of finding and hiring Magento developers with the right skill sets and experience that fits your business needs can be challenging when taking your business online. You must consider factors such as experience, technical skills, interpersonal skills and customer reviews to ensure a successful and efficient development process. Finding and hiring the right Magento developers can be daunting but rewarding in the end. They play an essential role in enhancing your e-commerce business, driving revenue, generating sales for your business and improving overall customer experience.

Making the Most of Python: App Development Tips

Avantika Shergil — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 12:04:52 +0000

Python is a highly interpreted language that was first introduced in 1991. Initially, was released by Guido van Russom, a dutch programmer whose aim was to deliver a rich, readable, and maintainable codebase. However, over the years, Python has gained a large and loyal fanbase. It is used in a wide array of Python web applications in data-driven decision-making that includes scientific computing, data analytics, game development, artificial intelligence, machine learning and much more. As more and more businesses are turning to Python for app development, it's crucial to use the language in the right way to ensure the success of the project.

Why Python For Mobile App Development?

According to the TIOBE index, Python is one of the top programming languages. Python has consistently been one of the top five programming languages since 2003. It has emerged as the most lucrative field for programmers and businessmen looking for a reliable language to work with. Easy to use, readability and relatively less development time are some features that make Python ideal for mobile app development.

Instagram, Pinterest and Spotify are some of the most scalable and trending applications built using Python. These multi-million dollar brands have chosen to develop with Python because of Python’s speed and agility.

Things to keep in mind during Python app development

Python is a popular language for app development because it is easy to learn and use, and has a wide range of libraries and top Python frameworks that make it easy to develop various types of enterprise applications. Even though Python is growing exponentially, organizations often struggle during its execution. It’s a relatively complex language because of the way it delivers. Thus, it is vital to know the right approaches of Python app development. Let us walk you through a few things that enterprises and business owners must keep in mind before getting started with Python app development projects.

Python is an interpreted language

When it comes to Python, the source code is translated into machine code at runtime itself, rather than at compile time. It simply means that the programming language doesn’t require packaging distributions or sophisticated builds. This feature makes it an ideal choice for various types of scripting, rapid prototyping and other development tasks.

Python being an interpreted language promotes fast development and ease of use. It focuses more on human based-dynamics. Moreover, CPython is the most trending interpreter that comes along with the installation of Python. It is known to run faster than Jython which is the interpreter of the java virtual machine. This interpreter makes sure that there is no scope for compile-time errors.

Readable documentation

In any programming language, readable documentation is extremely crucial. A lot of programmers struggle to work with the code if a developer working on it leaves the project haphazardly. In such cases, it is important to have documentation that is readable and allows a current developer to come to a better understanding of the project. Having clear and well-written documentation helps developers understand how the code works and how to use it correctly, this saves a lot of time and resources.

One of the tools used for Python app development is Sphinx. It assists in curating beautiful and intelligent documentation. Sphinx helps Python app developers to export existing reStructuredText and export documentation in simple HTML formats. It can be used to generate more sophisticated documentation, including documentation in the form of web pages and PDFs

Responsible coding

Another one of the most important aspects of Python app development, particularly when it comes to building apps, is being responsible while coding. This includes adhering to best practices and using appropriate design patterns. Moreover, it is vital to follow established conventions for naming and formatting your codebase.

Python's philosophy is often referred to as "Pythonic," which emphasizes writing code that is easy to read, easy to use and understandable, even for people who may not be familiar with the specifics of the programming language. This philosophy can only be achieved by keeping the codebase organized, modular and reliable.

Implementing best practices

Python being a versatile programming language has limitless diversities and capabilities to offer. It can be a boon for startups and business owners as Python has almost everything a modern-day business needs in their dynamic applications. However, the importance of implementing the best practices with Python programming is crucial to get successful results. There’s a lot more to Python than what users tend to assume.

The teams that work with Python tools must know the aspects, benefits and importance of using them. Any business that hires an experienced Python development company must ensure that they use Python’s best practices and tools. Overall, following the best practices when developing in Python can help developers write more robust and secure code that is easy to maintain and understandable. This makes your app development process more efficient and results more effective.

Python shell

Python shell is the most useful and powerful feature of the Python programming language. It allows programmers to run and maintain the Python code interactively and see the results immediately. Moreover, it provides a convenient way of accessing the features of the Python standard Library, which can save a lot of time and effort when developing new applications.

The interactive nature of Python shell helps in entering a single line of code and getting immediate responses. This makes it easy to experiment with various approaches and try out multiple ideas during the app development process. Furthermore, the Python shell feature can be used as a powerful tool for debugging and testing small pieces of code.

PyPI-Python Package Index

PyPI (Python Package Index) is a central repository for open-source Python packages and modules that has more than 200,000 projects in its repository. It can be a great help for app development teams in simplifying the development process. Developers should utilize the code from the repository instead of writing it from scratch.

PyPI can be installed by programmers using pip. They can also use it to create and upload their own packages. It makes it easy to find, install, and use third-party packages and modules in your app development projects.

Latest versions

When it comes to developing applications, it is essential to be aware of the different versions of python that are available. It is important to choose the right version for your specific project needs as various versions of Python have various features. Make sure that you research thoroughly about the market and user as well to select the best version to ensure success of your app.

Currently, there are two major versions of Python namely Python 2 and Python 3 that are actively used for the development of applications. Both versions have major distinctions and knowing the difference allows developers to understand what features they are working with and what approaches they should go with for an interactive Python app development framework. Thus, when choosing the version of Python for your app development project, it is vital to consider the compatibility, library support and benefits of using the specific version aligned with your business requirements.

Summing up

The Python programming language has a wide array of libraries and tools that the development team can use to make the app development project more scalable and innovative. Besides the technical aspects, it is essential to understand the right way of approaching the Python app development process. Conclusively, developing a successful Python application for your business requires a balance of technical expertise, project management and business acumen.

What attracts app developers to Flutter today?

Avantika Shergil — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 10:14:41 +0000

Digital businesses need to select mobile technologies that can help them build user-friendly and stable apps. The goal of every business is to create a memorable digital experience regardless of the user's mobile device or operating system. Organizations that fail to do so risk falling behind the competition.Companies want to launch their Android and iOS need to build two separate native apps; hence, cross-platform development has emerged as a cost-effective alternative to native app development

In contrast, a cross-platform app can work on both platforms with ease. In recent years, many cross-platform app development frameworks like React Native, AngularJS, and Xamarin have emerged. Flutter is relatively new entrant in the game, but it has gained immense popularity in the developer community. Many companies have adopted Flutter to develop their apps. The top apps built using Flutter include

PostMuse
Hamilton
XianYu
GoogleAds

Let us look at the various traits of Flutter that help attract developers to the SDK.

Background of Flutter

Flutter is an open-source SDK(software development kit) developed by Google in 2018. It is also a dynamic, cross-platform framework based on Google's programming language, DART. Flutter's layered structure allows the developers to build attractive and highly customizable applications. The hot reload feature of Flutter makes it easy for the developers to make changes on the go. Using Flutter, the developers can build high-performance cross-platform apps that deliver near-native performance. In addition, Flutter has a rich library of tools and widgets, which help the developers develop the apps faster. The rich collection of widgets in Flutter enables the app developers to achieve a high level of customization. With Flutter, the developers can build two different apps for iOS and Android.

While 2020 was a difficult year for most people, for Flutter, it was a year of significant growth. In 2020, Flutter reached its peak of popularity according to Google trends.

Flutter has overtaken React Native, its closest competitor. React Native was released 3 years earlier than Flutter and was among the most popular cross-platform app development technologies.

The reasons for the popularity of Flutter

Data shows that Flutter has emerged as one of the most popular app development SDKs. There are various reasons for Flutter's popularity. We have discussed some of the major ones below.

Faster app development with Hot Reloading

The hot reloading feature of Flutter boosts the app development speed. The developers can see the changes they make to the app within one second; hence, they do not need to wait for the app to recompile. Hot reloading also allows the developers to see the changes to the app structure in less than ten seconds. The developers do not need to wait to see their modificationsas they can see the effect as soon as they hit the save button.

Fast code writing and app testing

With Flutter, the developers can write code once and run it on any platform. This means that the developers can build a single application and run on two or more platforms such as iOS and Android using a single codebase. This functionality of Flutter helps reduce the time taken to launch the application. A single application built using a single codebase would take much less time to write and test than writing code for two separate applications. The hot reloading feature of Flutter also helps reduce the development time significantly. This is because the hot reloading features eliminate the grade rebuild time, which otherwise slows down the development.

Flutter is efficient

Google has developed Flutter on DART-its programming language. The benefit of DART is that it is a statically typed language that allows the developers to write structured code. The structured nature of DART helps the developers easily build more complex applications that have hierarchical structures. In addition, DART has clean and powerful syntax; it allows the developers to build clear architecture and design for any application. DART is developed to encourage the programmers to build low-maintenance apps with common standards, durability, and improvedefficiency.

Though there are cross-platform app development frameworks, they cannot produce cross-platform apps that perform like native apps. This is because these frameworks just-in-time compile the UI experience in JavaScript. On the other hand, Flutter provides a "write once" compile anywhere approach since an app built with Flutter is compiled ahead of time.

While building a native app, the developers need to build separate files for the front end and back end. Flutter, using DART, allows the developers to code both the front end and back end in a single code. The high level of efficiency is the reason why Flutter development is so popular amongst developers.

Google's Support

Flutter is backed by Google and this fact ensures that the Flutter developers will have the support of a technology major. Google consistently supports the developers with frequent updates and fixes the bugs immediately. Google released a major update of Flutter called as Flutter 2.0 that will allow the developers to build web apps. To boost the adoption rate of Flutter amongst the developer community, Google continuously organizes several Flutter technical events. These Flutter events help startups as well as established businesses to catch up with the latest developments in Flutter and learn how Flutter can help them grow their business.

An extensive catalog of open-source packages

The Flutter developers have access to a huge set of open-source packages, which enable them to build high-quality apps faster. Although comparatively small, the library of readymade tools and packages in Flutter is growing fast. Google has provided more than 15,000 packages to aid the Flutter developers. In addition, Flutter has a rich set of widgets for Cupertino and material design. These widgets help the developers render interactive UI on Android as well as iOS platforms easily.

Straightforward integration with Firebase

Firebase is another Google platform that allows developers to build high-quality mobile apps quickly. With Firebase, the developers get out-of-the-box support for a wide range of services like real-time databases, authentication, hosting, cloud storage, and cloud functions. The infrastructure is serverless, scalable, and redundant, meaning that the developers do not need to spend a lot of time and resources to build the backend. In addition, there are various high-quality Flutter app templates available in Firebase that help the developers finish the app development process faster. Google has enabled simple integration of Flutter with Firebase.

Flutter supports a wide range of IDEs

Flutter supports a wide range of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) and popular code editors. The developers can easily add Flutter as a plugin in VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and Android Studio. This proves to be a significant advantage as it allows the developers to write code using debuggers and automation tools, which boosts the development team's productivity levels.

Great UIs with widgets

One of the greatest strengths of Flutter is its extensive collection of widgets. With Flutter, the developers experience a high freedom in building the user interface regardless of the platform. This is because Flutter uses its own rendering engine to draw the widgets. Flutter helps developers use material design for Android and human interface for iOS, which is a limitation with other cross-platform solutions. Unlike Flutter, when one develops apps with other cross-platform solutions, the app looks the same on iPhone and Android. This is an issue because the app would not be able to utilize the unique characteristics of each platform. This would eventually affect the app's performance, and it won't be able to achieve near-native performance like an app built with Flutter.

One of the significant benefits of Flutter is that it is equipped with packages that contain a set of custom widgets for both operating systems. Due to Flutter's beautiful and customizable widgets, the developers can build Flutter apps that look and feel great. The developers can either use ready-made widgets from Material-UI or implement specific components into their UI based on basic widgets. Flutter also enables the developers to build custom widgets. In addition, Flutter provides great flexibility to work with gesture processing and animation.

Support from the Flutter team community

Flutter developers enjoy the support of a large developer community. This support is in addition to what Google provides to Flutter developers with frequent updates and issue fixes. Since its first release, Flutter now has 81,200 (and counting) stars on GitHub.Flutter mobile app development becomes easy due to the friendly developer community. In addition, Google organizes several events that help both the startups and established businesses catch up with the latest developments in Flutter.

Low-cost app development

Flutter helps companies achieve the goal of cost-effective development. As Flutter helps developers build efficient cross-platform apps, it saves business owners money that they would have otherwise spent in building two separate iOS and Android apps. This is because while a single team is sufficient to build an app with Flutter, to build two separate native apps, one would need to hire two separate teams, which would double the costs.

The hot reloading feature of Flutter helps the developers reduce the development time, which helps save costs. To perform smoothly, every app must be tested extensively. It would take a lot of time to test two native apps. With Flutter, this testing time can be reduced as the app undergoes all the quality measures only once saving a lot of time and efforts. The reduced testing time translates into lower costs as fewer hours are utilized in testing. As Flutter is open-source, the business does not need to pay any licensing fees to use Flutter.

Closing thoughts

Developers can find more than enough reasons to take up cross-platform development on Flutter. For instance, it alleviates many pain points faced by developers searching for a robust platform that allows them to build apps for multiple platforms. Flutter provides many advantages to businesses that choose to adopt it to develop their product. However, being a relatively new technology, it is hard to find experienced Flutter developers who can build an app according to the desired specifications. At TopDevelopers.co, we have enlisted the top Flutter app development companies to help aspiring entrepreneurs achieve their dream of building a top-notch Flutter app.

How to Improve Team Collaboration With DevOps Culture and Bring Teams Together?

Avantika Shergil — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 12:43:54 +0000

“Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with a passion.”

– Brian Chesky, Co-Founder, CEO, Airbnb

To be successful in today's rapidly changing IT business landscape, companies need to build a strong culture. Robust company culture helps to implement newer, innovative methods seamlessly, streamlines internal communication, and increases the longevity of the business organization. Thus, to build a solid business culture, IT companies must include DevOps.

The DevOps culture is heavily rooted in the IT realm as it has immense benefits. It helps companies cope with the fast-paced work environment, enhance quality product output, and limit post-production errors. Moreover, it also helps to decrease the delivery time and shorten the overall turnaround time in the software development process.

Therefore, in this blog, we will discuss different aspects of the DevOps culture and how it helps closely knit the teams together. Moreover, we will also see the benefits of having a DevOps culture and mindset at the workplace.

What is the culture in DevOps?

DevOps, the term, is a combination of two words: development and operations. Although the term first came into existence around 2007, Patrick Debois first coined it in 2009. Traditionally in the IT realm, the development team writes and tests codes while the operations team is in charge of software release and updates.

Both development and operations should work together to deliver a better product, but this was not the case before the inception of DevOps. Thus, this led to slow and disjointed services and unhappy customers.

With DevOps culture in place, the professional relationship between the development and operations team produces astounding results.

DevOps Culture with CALMS Framework

CALMS is an acronym that marks off the five core values around which the DevOps culture is built. CALMS stands for Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement, and Sharing. Jez Humble first coined the acronym, and it is based on John Willis' CAMS model.

Business organizations use the CALMS model to gauge their success, especially when transitioning from the software production process to DevOps.

Let us understand the model in detail:

Culture

It's a prerequisite for a company to have a culture of collaboration to facilitate successful DevOps. The teams should be oriented so that they care about the entire project and not just about their functions in the company.

To enhance a culture of collaboration within the business company, ensure that the communication between various teams is streamlined (including the remote team). Moreover, select the communication tools that can handle all kinds of dynamic media such as GIFs, videos, and codes.

Along with streamlined communication, continuous feedback is also essential. Thus, set the communication channels that have space for rapid exchange of feedback. There are different feedback and recognition tools available in the market that will help the team set goals and give formal feedback.

Automation

Automation is a secret tool of highly productive teams where DevOps culture principles are implemented. It streamlines all the repetitive tasks, and along with saving time, Automation makes the entire app building process more accurate. Whether catching bugs or security compromisations or running each code through a set of automated tests, Automation does everything to give impetus to the entire development process.

Moreover, since all the repetitive tasks are automated, business organizations require less human power to complete a particular task. Thus, it will be easier for them to define the project and get reasonable cost estimation.

Lean practices

"Simplicity - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is essential." - Agile Manifesto Principles. Lean is an Agile framework in software development process that helps iterate the product so that a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is delivered to the end-customer. The DevOps team then works on the suggestions given by the customers to build a better final product.

Lean work plays a pivotal role in continuous integration and continuous feedback intersection in the DevOps implementation strategy.

Measurements

There is no standard list that helps business organizations to measure the work done in DevOps. Thus, it becomes essential to measure internal processes and their results if the company wishes to measure some specific objectives.

They are:

Cycle time: time taken to finish each section of the project
Project lead time: total time the project would take from start to finish
Burndown charts: These are the charts that show the amount of work left
Technical: Number of features in the project app, bugs, code coverage, etc.)
Throughput: total processing time
Employee sentiment and experience
Customer satisfaction

Sharing

Business organizations should understand that a DevOps culture doesn't translate into the demise of the development and operations team. The process acknowledges that both departments have vital functions, but there is a need to share their burden to enhance the quality of the software products.

Thus, it is inevitable to foster sharing if the businesses want to have an influential DevOps culture in their organization. It helps break the interdepartmental barriers and allows the employees to be generally available for each other and the customers.

Tips to Build a Successful DevOps Culture at the Workplace

A DevOps team should be much more than a collection of individuals who happen to work on the same project. The business organization must follow guidelines to help their teams more effectively on the shared task and deliver the best results for this to happen.

Below is the list of tips that will help implement the DevOps culture principles successfully at the workplace.

Get the right leadership

It is impossible to build a DevOps team culture if there is not enough support from its leadership. Companies should understand that people who encourage cross-team collaboration must be donning the leadership responsibilities to begin a culture of collaboration. In this way, the leaders will be championing the leading cause of DevOps culture and implement it for the company's benefit.

Moreover, the leaders should refrain from implementing DevOps strategies just for the sake of it. They should understand that DevOps is an organic process that evolves continuously, and it requires patience to build an ethical culture. That is why good leadership is essential, as it will ensure that all the resources are working to their full potential and enable the team to flourish in their own right. Moreover, true leaders will also know when to step back let the employees do their job.

Assemble the right team and encourage cross-team collaboration

To develop a DevOps culture and mindset, your company needs a focused and motivated team. In addition, it is good to have a diverse team as it can also contribute to the overall collaborative culture.

Experienced individuals from different backgrounds can bring a new perspective to the unique team and enable them to create better products. Irrespective of your role in the company, DevOps implementation will embrace the right mindset and allow the employees to bring value to the team.

Have a common goal and work towards it

For a DevOps culture to propel in the business organization, it is necessary that its employees have a common goal, and they work towards it. A shared vision will allow the team members to under the big-picture easily. In this way, the employees can make better decisions during project development and help other team members achieve their goals.

Leadership in the business organization is also essential in helping the team members understand the company's vision. Moreover, the DevOps team should not think of competing goals. Instead, they should communicate goals at various levels in the team to make the outcome even more prolific.

Foster a culture of innovation and learning

There should be 'room for innovation' in the company if it wants to leverage the full benefits of cultivating the DevOps culture and mindset. Provide your employee's space to try new things and make mistakes. Unless the team members are willing to expand their work horizon, you will never know their full potential as a company.

Moreover, having a culture of innovation will also keep the team ahead in adopting new technologies.

Have the right set of tools and technologies

State-of-art tools are a must in facilitating a collaborative culture in an IT company. The right tools and technologies will ensure that each team member will give their inputs in effective continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) operation.

It is essential to select such tools and technologies that support a high degree of Automation. Without Automation, the team members will be compelled to perform various repetitive tasks manually to prevent their overall productivity. Automated tools will standardize the entire operation and allow the team member to focus more on innovation.

Instill a sense of ownership and shared responsibility

The IT company needs to allow its DevOps team members to work with a sense of ownership. Creating an environment of autonomy within the team will cultivate trust and respect and allow the members to do their job with enough confidence and independence.

In a company where the DevOps culture and mindset are implemented, each team member has direct insights into the project's development, test, deploy, and maintenance. In this way, everyone in the team stays committed to the cause of the project since every team member recognizes that they contribute to delivering the application in the best way possible.

Clear and transparent communication

As an IT business organization, you have to prioritize clear and open communication to help the company in the future. To foster communication, include all the team members in important team meetings and other essential gatherings.

Allow every person in the team to put-forth their point of view while focusing on keeping the team meeting to a minimum both in terms of number and time.

Complete information sharing is essential as it gives every team member a chance to be part of the planning team and give them access to learn new process and technologies.

Have a constant evaluation of progress

DevOps implementation is not a one-off operation; it is a continuous process. Thus, it is essential to have constant improvements and updates while keeping the end goal in mind. Moreover, it is also necessary to evaluate where things stand in the development process at regular intervals.

Constant evaluation will help the DevOps team to learn about the loopholes in the process or the sytem and work on them. Once they iron them out, it automatically increases the overall quality of the product while improving their skills.

Benefits of DevOps culture at the workplace

A neatly designed DevOps implementation strategy has perks of its own. We have listed some of DevOps' prime benefits below:

Reduces risks and wastage

The teams can deploy new software with DevOps while safeguarding the existing ones to ensure reliability during peak times. The agile process also enhances the software's flexibility and provides optimal security to the data inside.

Along with reducing the risks, DevOps culture principles help save the cost of maintenance and lower project complexity and capital expenditure. DevOps also automates the release pipeline that reduces the human resources and allows faster release of the software.

Increases employee engagement

An IT company with solid DevOps implementation has employees who are quick on their feet and highly motivated. The DevOps environment allows the employees to learn quickly and enables them to publish their projects rapidly. Since DevOps enhances overall employee engagement, it keeps the team members in touch base with their peers.

Improved customer experience

Along with increasing employee engagement, DevOps culture plays a significant role in enhancing customer experience as well. Since the employees are more involved in the development process, they will punch above their weight to create a better app with more customer-centric features. As the byproduct of this, the customers will remain more involved in the product.

High-quality products

Good collaboration between the development and operations departments will lead to significant improvement in the quality of the product. In addition, with DevOps culture and mindset, constant user feedback will compel the developers to enhance the quality of the end product.

Better operational efficiency

Automation by every means sits at the core of the DevOps culture. It not only enhances the team's productivity but is also vital in increasing operational efficiency as well. Because of Automation, there is no need to create everything from scratch in a DevOps environment. Moreover, automated processes handle the rapid growth of the product, varying workloads, and keep a check on the changing requirements.

Stable work environment

Implementing DevOps culture principles can render a well-balanced approach and stability to the overall work environment. It minimizes the tension involved during the release of a new feature and curtails the negative impact the tension can have on the productivity of the team. Moreover, it is easier to fix the bugs and update the application for the team members in a stable work environment.

Faster deployment

More frequent and faster delivery of updates and features are vital to keeping the customers interested in your application. Faster deployment enhances the overall customer experience and helps the IT business organization to stand firm in the competitive market.

Rapid problem-solving abilities

DevOps culture renders fast and reliable problem-solving techniques to ensure a hassle-free app development process. DevOps ensures that the solution to the technical errors in software management is stable and thus increases the credibility of the entire process.

Final Words

DevOps services companies follow the philosophy of continuous development and exercise it by every build iteration, small software changes, etc. In addition, implementing DevOps culture principles also helps the IT companies to innovate constantly and render a better user experience to their end customers.

Therefore, it will be safe to say that the future of all businesses and industries is DevOps. It helps IT business organizations to achieve their goals and render advantages that are way beyond their expectations.

CodeIgniter vs Laravel, which is a better framework?

Avantika Shergil — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 06:52:52 +0000

PHP is one of the most favored languages in a web development scenario today. This popularity has led to a rise in the number of PHP frameworks, which makes it easier for the expert PHP Developers to build a feasible solution for the business requirements. Codeignitor and Laravel are two such popular PHP frameworks with distinct advantages and disadvantages.

In this post, we will discuss the features and differences between these two PHP frameworks and try to ascertain where to use these frameworks more optimally.

Features of CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter is a popular PHP framework used in web application development. It helps in improving the speed of web development in PHP by its robust functionality and versatile features.

CodeIgniter follows the MVC (Model View Controller) pattern, which helps in making the process of web development more straightforward. Also, it allows developers to build secure web applications.

Let’s have a look at some features of CodeIgniter.

Low server requirement

CodeIgniter, through the MVC model, enables the developers to separate the code in a clear and easy to understand manner. It is compatible with PHP4 and PHP5 and allows the developers to build and manage large web apps.

CodeIgniter allows the developers to speed up the web development process by implementing database caching and page caching. These features help in caching the web pages in the fully rendered state. CodeIgniter even allows the developers to decide the time of caching.

Buttery smooth installation

CodeIgniter is a versatile framework as it provides plenty of freedom to the developers. The coders can bring variations like writing new code libraries in CodeIgniter. Being a small footprint framework, CodeIgniter is faster and is easy to install, which comes in very handy as the installation of frameworks can prove to be particularly challenging.

CodeIgniter helps the developers by providing built-in code libraries like zip-encoding, unit testing, and sessions uploading.

Simplified database editing

Codeigniter allows you to extract information from the database easily. This means that the developers can easily update the database without the need for writing raw SQL. With Codeigniter, the developers can easily edit the database and add or remove columns

Built-in security tools

CodeIgniter comes with some of the best security tools which help the developers in building secure web applications.

Features such as enabling cookie encryption and handling session data while using a database, empowers the developers. These features help the developers in choosing how much security does the web app need.

Better Error Handling Function

CodeIgniter has a robust error handling function that is user-friendly and helps the developers in identifying the errors in their code quickly.

Explore: Well-Researched List of Best CodeIgniter Development Companies.

Features of Laravel

Laravel is a popular open-source web development framework based on PHP. It was built to apply the concept of MVC in web application development. The fact that the framework is open-source and more secure has led to its immense popularity.

Let's have a look at some of the most exciting features of Laravel.

Modules

Laravel provides the developer with many pre-built modules and code libraries that help in building high-quality web applications. A composer dependency manager is provided in Laravel, which makes life easier for developers.

Easy scalability

Laravel enables the developers to define various routes which help in scaling up the application pretty fast.

Good testing features

Laravel helps the testers to test their web applications in a much faster and efficient manner by providing various test cases. A phpunit.xml file is integrated into your app and framework with helper methods. Thus allowing the developers to test their applications in a better manner.

ORM

Laravel provides features like ORM(Object-Relational Mapper) and a powerful query builder, which helps in managing large databases.

Explore: The List of Top Laravel Development Companies With Verified Client Reviews

Key differences between the two

Although both the platforms are very good for PHP application development, there are some critical differences between them let's discuss.

Support for PHP’s latest version

While both Laravel and CodeIgniter are compatible with the latest PHP version 7, many developers find it challenging to use CodeIgniter with PHP7.

Documentation

While the documentation of CodeIgniter is easy to understand, Laravel has extensive documentation.

Implementation of MVC

Both platforms use MVC patterns, which allows the developers to develop web applications in a fast manner. The only difference is that there is extensive documentation in the MVC pattern of Laravel.

While that of CodeIgniter is pretty easy to learn and implement. CodeIgniter allows the user to operate outside MVC, which is not the case with Laravel.

Usage of database structures

Laravel uses ORM, while CodeIgniter uses OOM(Object-Oriented Mapping). Laravel is better for relational data and will give better results with data sets that have some transparent relationships with each other.

For storing unrelated data like photos and videos, using CodeIgniter will prove a better option.

Libraries

The libraries of Laravel are extensive and well documented, which allows the developers to build faster by providing them with access to many building blocks. While in CodeIgniter, the libraries are not so extensive.

Support of community

Laravel has a much larger developer population than CodeIgniter, and hence the community support of Laravel is better than that of CodeIgniter.

Template engine

Laravel has the blade template engine, which provides robust support to developers and helps them in optimizing the performance of the website. While CodeIgniter does not have any template engine and the developer has to integrate CodeIgniter with other template engines.

Support for REST APIs

Laravel provides RESTful controllers, which enable the developers to build REST APIs quickly. The developers working with CodeIgniter have to put in significantly more effort to create custom REST APIs.

Learning curve

Laravel comes loaded with many features, and hence, it takes time to learn this language, while CodeIgniter is easy to learn.

Support for HTTPs

Laravel enables the developers to build custom HTTPs routes. Laravel provides the developers with the option of making a specific URL for every HTTPs route.

CodeIgniter lacks support for HTTPs route, here the developers have to manage the URL helpers to support secure data transmission.

Authentication

Developers can quickly implement authorization and authentication in Laravel, while in CodeIgniter, it is much more difficult as the developers need to write custom extensions for implementing authorization and authentication.

Verdict based on the Comparison between CodeIgniter and Laravel

For building simple websites that do not require the bells and whistles of an enterprise-level website, you can use CodeIgniter. The framework is easy to learn and implement, and the web application developed with Laravel will be able to run lightweight web applications efficiently.

For building enterprise-level websites that require integrating complex functionalities into a website, you should use Laravel.

Hadoop vs Spark: Which is a better framework to select for processing Big Data?

Avantika Shergil — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 12:08:12 +0000

Big Data Analytics has brought a paradigm shift in the business realm. New-age companies understand the need for gaining invaluable insights about their business through the application of Big Data. And this is why Hadoop and Spark have emerged as reliable solutions for processing Big Data. There are a number of supporters for both and the expert Big Data Analytics Companies decide amongst the two based on the various factors and after knowing the requirements from the businesses looking for a solution.

What is Hadoop?

Hadoop is a collection of open-source Java programs written to perform various operations on Big Data. The framework is famous for handling a broad set of simultaneous tasks as it provides enormous processing power and massive storage capacity to the developers.

This is one of the most commonly heard names in the field of big data and advanced data analytics. The top Hadoop Consulting and Development Companies will have better expertise to manage and decide based on your requirements.

What is Spark?

Spark is a Big Data Analytics technology designed for fast computing. Spark is based on MapReduce and builds upon the MapReduce model to include more range of computations, including stream processing and interactive queries.

The differentiating feature about Spark is the in-memory cluster computing feature that tremendously increases the processing speed of the application.

Spark is considered to be one of the most used frameworks in big data analytics, the Spark Development Service Providers believe that the framework has its own set of benefits and importance.

Differences between Hadoop and Spark

Performance

Earlier, Hadoop MapReduce was the undisputed leader in terms of processing speed. But the scenario has changed now as Spark proving to be 100 times faster with the in-memory processing operations and is ten times faster for services that are disc-based.

Spark does not face input-output issues at every single step granting a better performance for applications running on Spark. Spark also provides cyclical connections between various processing steps improving the analysis by leaps and bounds.

Although Spark is much faster, for batch processing, the performance of Hadoop is more stable as it can handle large amounts of data. It is because Spark is much less efficient while processing large datasets. It can lead to RAM overhead memory leaks.

Ease of Use

Hadoop is a complex framework, and beginners find it challenging to use as every operation requires coding by hand. This makes it challenging to use Hadoop for large scale projects which require thousands of lines of code.

Spark, on the other hand, is a very user-friendly framework that even allows the users to get an immediate response to their queries.

Costs

Although both Hadoop and Spark are open-source projects and are virtually free, you need to take into account other expenses as well. These costs include the cost of hardware, software, maintenance, and the cost of hiring a team that knows how to implement cluster administration.

Usually, Hadoop requires more memory, and Spark Requires more RAM. Thus, for on-premise clusters, if you choose Spark, then the costs will be more. Also, since Spark is a relatively newer system, there is a shortage of professionals who are well versed in the order. It makes it more expensive as compared to Hadoop.

Security

Developers consider Hadoop as more secure since it contains more confident and adequate controls for its Distributed File System. Hadoop also enjoys a particular project dedicated to its security, called Apache Sentry.

Spark has a much-less robust security model as compared to Hadoop.

In Hadoop, the data gets replicated across many codes, and each file is stored on numerous machines. It increases the safety and security of the data as one can rebuild the data quickly in-case a computer goes down.

Spark has security authentication enabled via a shared secret, and it prevents data corruption by using RDDs (Resilient Distributed Datasets). The main benefit of RDDs is that they can reference the external storage systems, and you can rebuild them if the need arises. This feature makes the data in Spark resilient to attacks and gives peace of mind to the user.

Machine Learning

Hadoop uses the power of Mahaout for data processing. Batch-based collaborative filtering, clustering, and classification are the powers that Mahaout provides Hadoop.

Hadoop has now evolved, and it is using Samsara now, which is a DSL language that lends the power of in-memory computing to the users of Hadoop. The Hadoop users can also write their unique algorithms using Samsara.

Spark, on the other hand, uses MLLib, which is a machine learning library used in iterative in-memory machine learning applications. Available in Java, Python, R, and Scala, the MLLib also includes regression and classification.

Thus, we can conclude that both Hadoop and Spark have high machine learning capabilities.

Hadoop is good for

Processing massive data sets

Hadoop is excellent for processing massive data as it has a parallel processing feature. The MapReduce function of Hadoop breaks the data into small chunks so that Hadoop can handle data sets separately across separate data nodes. Once Hadoop gathers the results, it can then compile the results from multiple nodes into a single result.

If the Dataset is larger than the RAM available, then Hadoop will outperform Spark.

Where cost is a significant factor

Hadoop can prove to be the right solution where the processing speed is not that important. If you do not want immediate results, then Hadoop proves to be a cost-effective solution.

Spark is good for

Lightning-fast data processing

The feature of in-memory computing makes Spark fast as compared to Hadoop. Spark has proven to be 100 times faster than Hadoop for data that is stored in RAM and ten times faster for data that is stored in the storage. Thus, if a company needs to process data on an immediate basis, then Spark and its in-memory processing is the best option.

As Spark can process data faster, it can create logical combinations amongst data sets pretty quickly. Hence, Spark is suitable for applications where a lot of shuffling and sorting of data is required.

Repetitive data processing

Spark is good at tasks where you need to process data iteratively. RDDs (Resilient Distributed Datasets) of Spark helps in enabling multiple map operations in memory. It is significantly better than Hadoop, where you need to write interim results to a disk.

The computational model of Spark is great in Graph processing as it is an operation that requires iterative processing. GraphX is a perfect API that Spark provides for graph data processing.

The “Big” Takeaway

Hadoop is mainly used for operations that are disk-heavy, while Spark is a flexible system that can process less-heavy data processing applications. With Hadoop MapReduce, you can cost-effectively process massive amounts of data. Hence, wherever cost is more important than the speed, you can choose Hadoop over Spark.

While Spark can provide instant results but is costlier than Hadoop, hence wherever speed is more important, you should choose Spark.

Thus at the end of the day, the choice between Hadoop and Spark is solely dependent on the requirements of your business. This should have provided a good overview of the difference between the two and but if you are still unsure or need assistance with the execution then, these top big data service providers can help you end-to-end right from selecting a better framework to executing it for your business requirement.

Kotlin vs Flutter: The game changers of Cross-Platform App Development from Google

Avantika Shergil — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 09:39:24 +0000

Over the past decade, mobile apps have become the pivot or the fundamental pillar around which a successful modern-day business organization is built. If you have expert app developers by your side, your business has a definite edge over your competitors.

With the expansion of mobile technology, more and more entrepreneurs and developers are relying on cross-platform apps so as to expand their user base in a budget-friendly manner. For years, top business houses have relied on React Native and Flutter app development to fulfill their cross platform app needs.

Best Flutter app developers help the businesses to develop state-of-the-art cross-platform apps with limited resources without compromising on the quality of the app.

Meanwhile, Kotlin, due to its advantages, has become the favorite of many among the leading mobile app development companies and is giving stiff competition to Flutter app development, leaving everyone confused about which platform to choose for cross-platform app development.

Therefore, without much ado, we’ll try to paint a clear picture of the overall comparison between Kotlin and Flutter app development.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a framework and in more literal form can be defined as a modern app development kit that is designed to build excellent mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Google Fuchsia. It was first released by Google in the year 2015. The SDK helps in creating native-looking apps by using a single code base. The dedicated Flutter app developers build apps that are compatible with Android and iOS with equal consistency.

Advantages of Flutter

Flutter is an open-source and free to use software development kit. Thus, the developers here have the luxury to view the documentation and post the queries to the developer forum.
Flutter has Firebase integration. Therefore, the developers can add the backend facility in the app or web development realm.
It lowers the timeline and cost of app development as Flutter uses single codebase for both iOS and Android platforms

What is Kotlin?

Kotlin is a statically typed programming language for Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and it was developed to make the programming language more reliable for any design. The app development codes used in Kotlin are considered to be trustworthy and reliable.

Kotlin, which was also developed by Google, has emerged as one of the most immediately adopted languages in the world. It is uniquely interoperable with its functional pieces and Java.

Brief Introduction of Kotlin Multiplatform

Kotlin Multiplatform is a feature of Kotlin language that enables the developers to run Kotlin in Native desktop applications, iOS, and JavaScript. Thus, Kotlin Multiplatform is a method to share codes between multiple platforms.

Advantages of Kotlin

Kotlin has a syntax that is similar to the top programming languages such as Swift, and thus it becomes easier for the app developer to learn Kotlin.
Kotlin is an SDK, and thus you don't need to shift the entire application. You can begin with a single feature and then gradually integrate other functionalities and aspects.
The Kotlin multiplatform combines the code, which is precisely the same as the targeted platform. Thus it provides excellent performance at par with the native counterparts.

Weighing the Cross-Platform App giants on different scales of Merits

Both Kotlin and Flutter have a myriad of advantages, and thus it becomes crucial to compare both the platforms on various parameters.

Performance

The most significant advantage that companies have while opting for Flutter is that it provides hot reloading functionality. This feature makes it easier for the users to make any kind of modifications at the backend and then view the difference it makes at the front-end.

Thus, the flutter developers get a clear idea about the changes they make in real-time, thus reducing the time taken for app development.

Kotlin language makes the cross-platform app development process more reliable with better performance as compared to the native counterparts. Kotlin Multiplatform compiles the code in the precisely same format that is desired for the targeted platform.

Thus, the cross platform apps built with Kotlin match performance with their native counterparts.

Enhance UI Experience

The perks of working with the Flutter Platform is that the app developers manage to get the opportunity to utilize various types of widgets in the app development environment.

Thus, the apps developed using flutter makes it really easy for the end-user to have a constructive mobility solution that is faster and has enhanced and customized look and feel.

There is no need to follow any kind of instruction to create a UI in Kotlin Multiplatform. The UI developers working with Kotlin will have the luxury of experimenting with the behavior, performance, and appearance of the mobile app in the same manner as they would do in a native app.

Platform Supporting Testing

Expert app developers working with Flutter will have the luxury of working with a rich set of testing features. Flutter provides test features for the mobile app at the unit, widget, and integration level.

Proper documentation of testing is done by Flutter on the flutter apps. It has a very unique widget testing feature, which allows the user to examine the widgets in order to see the UI and operate them at the speed of the unit tests.

As far as Kotlin is concerned, the Kotlin platform has major advantages if you consider working with the backend development services. By far, the app development platform is regarded as the best backend development service provider.

Unlike Flutter, Kotlin multiplatform allows the app developers to develop the backend code. Flutter operates with Firebase in order to have sufficient backend development opportunities.

Working with Third-party Library and Tools

Flutter provides the functionality of developing state of the art mobile app that works consistently on both iOS and Android platforms. Flutter, as a cross-platform app development platform, fills the gap with a prime focus on native performance, elegant UI, and improved productivity.

Thus, Flutter becomes the ideal platform for MVP development for the company. The MVP development with Flutter can be done while creating a prototype.

While Kotlin Multiplatform operates within the native ecosystems, there is no need to build one. The good choice mobile app development service providers can operate with the same tools from the native ecosystem. Their libraries involve SwiftUI and Jetpack compose.

This clearly indicates that Kotlin requires third party libraries and the tools in order to connect the combinations and be at par with the native app environment.

Market Popularity

There are high chances that your product will flourish in the marketplace if you work with the top flutter app developers. Flutter as an app development platform is rapidly expanding and is becoming the first choice of the renowned app developers.

Since it is developed by Google, the search engine giant is planning to make Flutter big in the mobile technology realm in the future.The app developers find Flutter very easy to understand and work with .

As compared to Flutter, Kotlin is still in the nascent or an experimental stage. Thus, the documentation and community support is comparatively less as to Flutter. But, it is expected that in the future as Kotlin multiplatform becomes stable in the marketplace, the community support, as well as the documentation, will increase.

Thus, the future looks bright for Kotlin, as many companies will opt for Kotlin.

Coding the final Line

Recently, there has been a spike in the number of businesses looking for efficient cross-platform app developers as there are plenty of frameworks and platforms to support the development of cross platforms or hybrid apps in the best way possible.

If you are looking for native as well as cross platform application development, working with Flutter or Kotlin multiplatform remains a reliable option. Both the platforms have a common aim of decreasing the time taken for developing the app and increasing the mobile app’s performance. Both platforms can be used for app development purpose as they work consistently with both iOS and Android platforms.

Organizations need to realize the expectations and requirements before opting for a platform to develop an app. An expert app developer or an app development firm can be your perfect ally in defining the app requirement and easing the process of mobile app development.

9 React Native IDEs and Editors for React Native App Development

Avantika Shergil — Tue, 19 May 2020 09:41:01 +0000

React Native has made it easier to build high-quality hybrid apps. This popular app development framework has proved to be a boon for the Mobile app developers. It's incredible to see the speed with which the React Native ecosystem is churning out great support tools and plug-ins.

The editors as well as the IDEs used in development holds a very important place when it comes to making the life a little easier for the developers. The best React Native App Developers have been making use of the Editors and IDE’s judiciously so as to build the best mobile app solutions. We’ll have a brief overview of some of them but before that let's find-out the difference between React Native Editors and IDEs before going to further.

Difference between an IDE and an Editor

IDE means an Integrated Development Environment. In an IDE, you will get all the tools like a text editor, compiler, debugging tools, and other such tools that are required for development in a single package. The peculiarity about all IDEs is that virtually all of them are dependent on a particular language or a framework.

An Editor, on the other hand, is just a tool that edits text. The peculiarity of the editors is that the programmers can use the editor with the language of their choice.

Now let’s find out the best React Native Editors that will make your life as a Developer much easier.

Best React Native Editors and IDE’S

With so many React Native editors to choose from, the choice sometimes becomes mind-numbing. Here, we have compiled some of the react-native editors that we think are the best for your convenience.

Atom

The most popular React Native editor, Atom, is also one of the easiest to use editors that a React Native developer can access. One can access this popular open-source editor on various platforms like Linux, Windows, and OSX. Having a large support community benefits the users of Atom as new updates, and better plug-ins are always readily available.

Highlights of Atom:

Multi-pane system
Auto-completion of text
Cross-platform editing possible
Built-in package manager
Find and replace feature
File system browser

Vim editor

Another good open-source editor, the Vim Editor, gives the developers freedom to create and edit any text easily. The Vim editor has great plug-ins that allow the developers to work efficiently with Facebook's React Library and a plug-in that will enable indenting in JSX and for syntax highlighting.

Highlights of Vim editor:

Competent integration with many tools
Good support of various languages and file formats
A wide array of supportive plug-ins
Robust search and replace function
A tremendous multi-level undo tree feature

Sublime Text

Sublime text editor is one of the most popular editors as it offers a lot of packages and themes which are similar to Atom. A seasoned player in the tech market, the sublime text editor, is more than a decade old.

Highlights of Sublime text:

The Goto anything function
Split editing feature
A mode to work in a distraction-free manner
Nice command palette
Anything is customizable in sublime text
Supports cross-platform functionality

Visual Studio Code

A great cross-platform, flexible, and feature-loaded editor, Visual Studio Code, was released in 2015 and since then it has become a fan-favorite.

Highlights of Visual Studio Code:

Built-in Git Commands
Highly customizable
Extensible
Feature to debug the code from the editor

GNU Emacs Editor

A self-documenting, customizable, and real-time display editor, the GNU Emacs editor, is another open-source editor that is making all the right noises.

Highlights of GNU Emacs:

Robust support for new users that includes a detailed tutorial and built-in documentation
Great Unicode support for all human scripts
Uses the Emacs Lisp code
A well-managed packaging system for downloading and installing the extensions
A project planner, debugging interface, calendar and another plethora of tools apart from the regular text editor

Nuclide

Considered as one of the best IDEs, Nuclide has built-in support for React Native, and it also offers robust support to JavaScript programmers. Backed by Facebook, Nuclide came into being to remove the limitations of other popular IDEs like Eclipse and Appcode.

Highlights of Nuclide:

Auto-complete feature
Code diagnostics
Support for Hack language
Mercurial support
Support for Flow
Debugging support
Support for Remote development

Spacemacs

Spacemacs is an open-source editor that is very simple to use for those users who are familiar with the Vim editor. The main advantage of the Spacemacs editor is that a programmer can mix Vim and Emacs style at the same time.

Highlights of Spacemacs editor:

Highly Customizable editor
Robust documentation
Command-line editing tool
You can find the available packages and layers quickly by using the simple query system
Same key binding for similar functionalities

Deco IDE

Deco IDE is another all-in-one solution that is designed for writing high-quality React Native apps. Deco has functions like editing UI in real-time and component reuse.

Highlights of Deco:

Real-time tweaking in UI is possible
One can search and insert components
New file Scaffolds are available

Webstorm

Webstorm is a popular editor that is built on the IntelliJ platform. You can get advanced support for React Native and Javascript in Webstorm, which includes core coding assistance for building React Native apps.

Highlights of Webstorm:

Advanced coding assistance
Supports the latest technologies
Support for tracing and testing in Debugging
An excellent version control system
You can integrate all tools in a seamless manner

Final edit
There are many IDEs and editors available for making good quality React Native apps. In this article, we have discussed the most popular ones. Which Editor/IDE to choose is, in the end, the choice of the developer who is writing the code.

All the editors mentioned above and IDEs have many features that help in making the life of the React Native developer a bit easier. So, what are you waiting for? Just pick anyone and start exploring the exciting world of React Native development.

Why Google preferred Kotlin-First Approach for Android App Development?

Avantika Shergil — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 09:53:12 +0000

In 2019 Google announced that Kotlin would be their preferred language for Android app development. According to the chief advocate for Android, Chet Hasse, "Many new Jetpack APIs and features will be offered first in Kotlin. If you're starting a new project, you should write it in Kotlin. Coding in Kotlin often means much less code for the developer to manage–less code to type, test, and maintain."

Although Google has not withdrawn support for Java, taking a Kotlin first approach speaks volumes about the future strategy of the company. In this article, we shall discuss how developing on Kotlin can prove beneficial to you.

Origin of Kotlin

Kotlin was launched in June 2011 by a software development company based in Russia called the JetBrains. The software developers at Jetbrains found themselves in a position, where Android Programming in Java had reached its limits. They were spending more time in thinking how to code instead of doing the real work.

Fed up with it, the developers at Jetbrains decided to create their own programming language, a language that will allow them to be more productive by ensuring that they can code more in less time.

Kotlin allows the developers to use lesser characters than Java and program with the same efficiency without losing the clarity of code. Kotlin is less error-prone and faster as compared to Java.

Android developers took notice of this rookie, and Kotlin quickly rose in popularity. So much so, that Google in 2017 announced that Android was now officially supporting Kotlin.

Key advantages of adopting Kotlin

Open-source

Kotlin was made open-source by its parent company in 2012. Since then, the developer community of Kotlin has grown. This helps in growing Kotlin, as many enthusiastic developers are willing to lend their time and expertise to the new developers trying to learn Kotlin.

Mature language with IDE support

Kotlin has gone through many stages of improvement before being released, and it was used in many Android projects much before Google announced its official support for the language. Hence Kotlin got the chance of evolving into a more mature language. JetBrains, the company which released Kotlin, is the same company that programmed IntelliJ, an IDE on which the Android Studio is based.

Hence Kotlin enjoys a much deeper level of support with Android Studio than other languages. The IDE will run smoothly on Kotlin as it comes equipped with several popular features of Java like- auto-completion, debugging, unit testing and full refactoring support.

Improves efficiency

Kotlin is a highly concise language which means that you can code in Kotlin using much fewer lines than in Java. Having lesser lines of code reduces the occurrence of bugs significantly. Kotlin enhances the system by reducing the amount of boilerplate code.

Kotlin gives the developers access to features like properties, type interfaces, data classes, and smart casts. These features help the developers in building a more reliable base of code which has much fewer bugs.

Kotlin also supports the concept of functional programming, which helps in improving the performance of your mobile app via inlining. With Kotlin, you can shift between different useful ideas in a much more concise and easy way.

Kotlin helps in boosting the productivity of the developer as it allows them to leverage the benefits of features like object declarations, extension functions and the parameter values which have been inducted into Kotlin to speed up the development process.

One of the primary goals of the Kotlin team, while developing this language, was to improve the compiler. The compiler of Kotlin applies the fail-fast principle and detects errors while compiling and not during the runtime. The compiler of Kotlin also performs many checks and helps in reducing the number of bugs in the code.

The clean code of Kotlin is easy to decipher even for a novice programmer, and it is a language that is easier to maintain as compared to other programming languages.

Kotlin is Safer

While designing Kotlin, the team at JetBrains took sufficient precautions to ensure that the language was much safer than Java. One of the main issues with Java is that it is an error-prone language as it is a very verbose language. You have to type multiple lines of code to execute a simple function.

Kotlin removes this inherent flaw of Java by reducing the amount of code to be written. And thus, making Kotlin a lesser error-prone language.

Kotlin deals with a considerable problem in Java, The Null pointer exception (NullPointerException). Nulls are the points where most developers slip and commit errors. In Kotlin, you will not find null. In case the developer wants to use the null value, then Kotlin will force the developer to check the null value before doing anything else with the variable.

Thus Kotlin has eliminated the issue of null pointer exception by improving the design of its language. With the null pointer exception resolved, Kotlin experiences less system failures and application crash as compared to that when coded in Java.

Apart from this, Kotlin uses a single annotation, @Parcelize on a given class to deal with parcelable serialization. Kotlin allows the developers to write asynchronous code in the forms of blocks, thus making it possible to focus on the data instead of worrying about how to fetch it.

Kotlin is safer by design, as it ensures that the developers think about the issues that will creep into the code before they have arisen.

Compatible with Java

Coding with Kotlin allows you the luxury of deploying a Kotlin and a Java code side by side as it enjoys high compatibility with Java Programming. You could easily interchange Kotlin's code with Java, and this will have no bearing on the outcome of your Android project.

All the major frameworks and libraries of Java are provided in Kotlin, which improves the interoperability of Java and Kotlin. You can convert an entire Java file into Kotlin with just a few clicks.

Easy to learn

For those who know Java, it is pretty easy to learn Kotlin as the syntax used in Kotlin is almost same as that of Java. While designing Kotlin, the developers at JetBrains took special care to ensure that the language was similar to Java Language. Because if not, it would have affected their projects as Kotlin was developed initially as an in-house project in JetBrains. There are considerable similarities in the structure of Java and Kotlin.

Winding up
By taking a Kotlin-First Approach towards its android development process, Google has set the snowball rolling. With the developer community already raving about the benefits of Kotlin, and companies like JetBrains and Google solidly backing the language, it would be safe to say that the future of Kotlin is bright.

Although there are many similarities between Kotlin and Java, it is better to hire professional android developers for your next Android project, so that they can take full advantage of the features that Kotlin offers.

Top Mobile Game Engines & Development Platforms

Avantika Shergil — Wed, 29 Jan 2020 09:42:25 +0000

Mobile games are liked by one and all. Thus looking at the broader range of user, mobile game development companies are trying their best to woo the players with the better mobile game apps. The recent success of gaming apps like PUBG is a clear example that gaming in the mobile technology arena holds a broad scope and can become a crucial asset in defining the success of the organization.

Gaming apps bring both competitiveness and nostalgia. The most premier example of mobile game development companies harnessing on nostalgia is the resounding success of PokemonGo. The famous cartoon series from the '90s brought back the childhood days of the millennials as the majority of the targeted customers were below 35 years of age.

Mobile game development companies should have a thorough knowledge of the platform on which they are planning to develop the game. Factors like having a large developer community, easy to code, working on both the OS platforms (Android and iOS) must be some of the key features that should be looked at. Moreover, the platform should be such that it should support native as well as cross platform mobile gaming apps.

Keeping all these in mind, we have prepared a full-throttle list of mobile game development platforms that are in trend and can help you in developing the best gaming product for the targeted audience.

Take a look at the Game Developers’ most preferred Platform & Engines

Unity

Unity is one of the top game development platform found around the globe and widely used by game development companies. It is a cross platform tool that helps the game developers to create a game using breathtaking 2D and 3D features. It also allows borrowing or import of 3D application, thus offers a wide range of 3D technologies to choose from.

Moreover, if you are just a beginner or a startup company trying their hands for the first time in game development, Unity offers you tutorials and materials that can guide you. It supports all the major platforms like Android and iOS. Some of the top games developed using Unity are Pokemon Go and Angry Birds.

Unreal Engine

Like Unity, Unreal Engine is a multipurpose platform that gives the game developers the opportunity to build their own mobile games. It also provides the facility of live-updating so that you can correct the mistakes as soon as you find one in the game. Moreover, it has many user-friendly and easy to understand features so that the mobile game developers do not need exceptional game developing skills to begin the mobile game development process.

The easy to work interface at Unreal Engine gives the possibility of testing the game inside the platform only. By this feature, even the minor mistakes or bugs or hiccups can be eradicated. The interactive 3D techniques give the mobile game app developers the liberty of designing mobile games that hook the customers for a more extended period of time. Games like Heart at attack and ABC Augmented reality have been developing using Unreal engines and are working great at the play store.

CocoonJS

CocoonJS helps the mobile game developers to build the app using CSS3, HTML5, and Javascript, unlike Objective-C, which only allows device-specific languages. This flexibility is essential as the game developers can bring in all their creativity and develop a more viable game that is user-friendly and durable in the mobile game market.

You can create HTML games with CocoonJS that are fully compatible with Cordova. In addition, Cocoon cloud in use, there is no need for the developers to install SDKs and their plugins. The cloud-based platform provides you all the plugins, thus saving the memory of the device. Classic mobile games like Solitaire Swift and Celsius heroes have been developed using CocoonJS.

BuildBox

With BuildBox, you can have a plethora of options that includes editing game-play, logic pieces, characters, and even several presets. Not only this, it is the fastest mobile game app development platform, thus helps in reducing the time taken to develop a product and get to the market. You need to assign the characters or objects a role and need not import or select images separately for them.

The platform gives you the facility to do real-time changes in the mobile app, and it is straightforward to understand. Thus for the first time coders and game developers, developing your game on Buildbox, could be the best thing to happen. The platform only supports iOS, and games like Timelight are built using BuildBox.

Corona SDK

This platform uses Lua scripting language and is a cross platform “2 D Game Engine”. The scripting language in the Corona SDK platform makes it easier for the game developers to go about their work. You can specially design high-end 2D games as Corona SDK is a good 2D game development platform. Corona has specific and clear documentation and supportive app developers’ community so that there is no dearth of advice or suggestions whenever you are in trouble during the game development process.

The real-time simulation feature will enable you to understand how the mobile game app will look after the changes are done. The core functionalities of Corona are free for the developers to use, and it works for Android as well as iOS. I Love Hue is the most prominent game that is developed using this platform.

AppGameKit

AppGameKit game development platform uses coding languages that is similar to C++ and is a perfect platform for both the beginners and game developing experts to showcase their skills. It is a cross platform game development platform so that the mobile app development companies can use it for multiple types of games and thus taking their product to a more extensive section of the audience.

Apart from iOS and Android, it also supports Windows and Blackberry as well. Hence with AppGameKit, you will have a sizable audience and therefore increase in the horizon of your business. Na4 and Bouncing Brendan are some of the top games that are developed using AppGameKit.

Cocos 2D-x

As the name itself suggest, Cocos 2D-X is a packaged 2D game development platform that is released by Facebook. The significant advantage of using this platform to develop your app is that you can create a game app of size as small as 1.5 MB. Not only the loading time of the app will be less, but as it takes low space, the customers would have no second thoughts in downloading the game in their device.

It has a large developers' community and comes with detailed documents, therefore easy to understand. Top-rated games like Angry Birds Fight, and Clash of Kings are developed using Cocos 2D-X, and their popularity is a clear example of how competent it is as a game development platform.

Closing Words

Each of the game development platforms mentioned above are great and high in their own right. The game development companies are milking millions on the App store and Play Store by developing the game on these platforms.

What becomes necessary for an organization to understand is they need to find out their targeted audience and their preference before choosing a platform.

Go through the merits and demerits of each before finalizing. Game development Industry and gaming apps are on the rise, and there is no chance of them getting slowed down in the near future.