Mobile technology is the best buddy of the people around the globe that has connected them in the fragmented world, made the life better than before and added comfort to get everything from the couch. The power of magnifying efficiency and improving productivity has brought an astronomical rise in mobile app development. Be it for personal, business, or society, there is an app for that.
In the hyper-competitive market with a sea of apps, seizing an edge is not plain-sailing. Making the app perform to the notch, offer best-in-class functionalities, and deliver wow experience is all-important to gain momentum and create a huge buzz in the app store.
This is feasible when the right framework, right platform, and the right development methodology is selected. As we are already in the mid of the year 2019, it’s vital to choose the right framework to thrive in the near future. The radical changes in user behavior and business needs have made it a more important task.
In order to reduce your efforts and time investment in finding the best framework that helps you build better and faster applications for distinct niches, I have come up with a list of frameworks that are a perfect fit for the different apps with various features, UI, and UX needs.
Let’s take a sneak peek inside them:
PhoneGap
The open-source framework is developed by Adobe that’s previously known as Apache Cordova. It’s considered as a reliable platform for the cross-platform app development due to better access to native APIs which further helps in including native features and add native feel to the app in a cost-effective manner.
The large community base of PhoneGap is a great help to get support or answers for the problems. The robust backend support accelerates the development process and minimizes the developer’s effort. The slew of UI libraries makes using the framework worth for better UI development that offers a brilliant user experience.
Besides, the use of languages like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript doesn’t require the developers to put extra efforts into learning the language and execute the development process, which brings suppleness in app development.
Flutter
The framework that enables seamless cross-platform app development with one codebase is based on OOPs language- Dart. It’s well-famous for hot reloading feature that enables dynamic app development due to its ability to make changes directly in the code and view the results in a fraction of a second.
The automatic tests are written just for one codebase, which means the developers require less time to test the app. The catalog of Flutter’s widgets and the capability to customize the existing widget or create a new widget enables designers to craft the designs that sync with a business goal and vision on-the-fly. Creating outstanding animation has become possible with 2D Flare.
Using a single language, both backend and front-end can be developed because there are no separate files for views that need to be referenced by Java.
Ionic
The mystical framework is built on the top of Angular that lower down the entry barrier for the beginners. Learning one programming language- JavaScript enables the developers to create apps for three different platforms, namely- iOS, Android and Windows. Incorporating native features in the apps is feasible with Cordova (Inbuilt in Ionic) that packages the app into WebView and versatile native plugins that enable access to native device features.
The powerful command line interface (CLI) compiles the project to native projects, and create the new files and folders following the right architecture. The Ionic lab feature speed up the app testing by showcasing how the app looks on the different platforms, side by side. When the changes are made, the Live Reload is triggered that helps in viewing the changes in app preview and then the code is updated automatically.
Not to forget the beautiful UI components which come with predefined styling that add Material design touch to the elements on Android, and the latest iOS look to the iOS apps.
Xamarin
The .NET based framework is amazing in the sense of yielding true Android and iOS mobile apps concurrently within the Xamarin environment. It provides access to platform-specific SDKs using simple syntax that further helps in bringing the apps close to native. It also supports building the wearable app for all three platforms.
Complementing C# with .NET, the apps can be created for any mobile platform with 96% of the source code reuse, which accelerates the development speed and alleviates the need to switch between different development environments.
Xamarin.Forms convert app UI components into platform-specific UI components at the runtime to create a flawless native experience across the platforms. With full hardware compatibility and access to platform-specific APIs, the app can be linked with native libraries that enable better customization and creation of native-level functionality with little overhead.
The maintenance and updates are a lot easier. By simply deploying the changes or making updates to the source file, the changes can be applied to apps on various platforms. Xamarin test cloud packed with performance tracking capabilities can test and detect the bugs or performance issues over 2000 devices in a couple of seconds.
React Native
Reaching masses, low development cost, and fast launch time are the sweet spots that every business desire to achieve, but they don’t come cheap. Therefore a compromise on one of the elements becomes essential, but it does not happen while using React Native framework.
By writing the code once that runs everywhere, the developers can build the app for multiple platforms. Besides, the native components and the counterparts of native-specific components of every platform are available in React Native that can be reused during the app development without building from scratch, which results in an app that performs and looks like a native app. The numerous third-party plugins incorporate device-specific elements in the app.
With React Native, the developers have to write the least number of lines of code, which automatically reduces the number of bugs, errors, and other issues thereby the code quality can be ensured.Flexbox is a popular solution to structure mobile UI and animated API can be leveraged for animations.
NativeScript
The open-source framework is leveraged in conjunction with Angular, Vue.js, TypeScript, or JavaScript to develop true native apps. It allows the developers to work with the latest native APIs, native theme, the native components without waiting for plugins to begin support for a new feature. Moreover, NativeScript apps can directly run on native devices without requiring any browser interaction or cross-compiling.
It’s highly extendable with 100% access to all iOS and Android APIs, which signals the developers will never be in the tough spot of writing native code and can remove the native coding factor from the development equation. Besides, it won’t rely on WebViews to build the interface, instead transpile the code into native to offer native-like performance.
jQuery Mobile
The framework supports most of the operating systems, and device with different screen sizes that enable developers to code once and get the app run for multiple platforms without making any significant changes to the code.
Saying it a theming framework won’t be an overstatement as it supercharges the developers with the ability to create custom themes, apply the CSS-based transition effects, customize form controls, layout, page panels, and manipulate other elements of the UI to create the interface that best suit the business-specific mobile app needs.
The support for HTML5 enables UI development with minimal scripting. It comes in two variants- the customized version and the latest stable version. The latter version is high in demand for rapid app development in combination with plugins.
Also Read: Cross-Platform War — Which Side are you on Ionic or React Native?
Epilogue
Which is the best framework to place a bet on? Exactly, this is the question followed by the end of every listing article. In the mobile universe, a plethora of frameworks offering different approaches to develop the same app. Every framework is evolving every single day, leaving no room for outdated techniques to increase their influence in the mobile space and stay ahead of the rest.
It muddies the water. There is no straightforward formula to decide and invest in the right mobile app development framework. The definition of Right framework encompasses all the factors and elements that business needs to win the game through the groundbreaking app.
You guess it exactly correct. Wear the user’s lens to identify the app needs and then narrow down the choice to one framework that best fit in the scenario.
Top comments (3)
Hi,
Thank you so much for writing this article. It was really helpful.
Although, I couldn't help but notice that this list of best mobile app development frameworks is missing a couple of frameworks such as Mobile Angular UI and Corona SDK to name just a few.
Would you mind adding details about these two frameworks as well?
Nice Article! Review our article Mobile app development frameworks
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