Mobile Application Development Frameworks

Top 10 Trending Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development Frameworks

SUMIT SHARMA
TheLeanProgrammer
7 min readSep 27, 2020

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In recent times, Mobile Application Development is growing exponentially. Today every person in the world has a smartphone. And there are lots of opportunities, demand, and an increasing interest in Mobile Application Development. So instead of developing the mobile application multiple times for different platform like Apple iOS, Android by using the respective native technology for each platform, and to skip the hassle of having to learn multiple programming languages for different platforms, and to save the cost of having multiple teams working on the development of applications for different platforms, and to increase the return on investment and generate higher revenues, Cross-platform mobile application development came as a solution and become popular by which mobile applications can be created that can be deployed or published on multiple platforms using a single codebase.

Top 10 Trending Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development Frameworks

The word Cross-platform, in simple terms we can say that Cross-Platform = Develop in one, Deploy for many.
All the mobile application development frameworks which we are going to discuss provides hybrid support for Apple iOS and Android.

So to keep ourselves updated with technology, today we are going to have a look at — Top 10 Trending Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development Frameworks.

For each framework the following points will be covered :
1. Technologies to learn
2. Features
3. Official Website and Documentation Links

10. Mobile Angular UI

Mobile Angular UI — A Perfect Combination of Angular JS and Bootstrap

Technologies —
1. Angular Directives
2. Bootstrap

Features —
1.
Mobile Angular UI is an open-source framework for developing hybrid mobile applications.
2. Mobile Angular UI lets you create HTML5 hybrid mobile apps and desktop apps with Twitter Bootstrap and Angular JS.
3. It provides awesome mobile components which were missing in Bootstrap 3
4. To achieve a better mobile experience it relies on robust libraries like fastclick.js and overthrow.js.
5. From Desktop to Mobile and back with the smallest effort possible.

9. Appcelerator Titanium

Appcelerator Titanium — Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Solution

Technologies —
1. HTML
2. CSS
3. JavaScript

Features —
1. Appcelerator Titanium is an open-source framework that allows the creation of native, hybrid, or mobile web apps across platforms including iOS, Android, Windows Phone from a single JavaScript codebase.
2. The MVC model is best suited for clean and quick application development
Easy and quick development for a web developer (as it is written using JavaScript, TSS — which very much similar to CSS).
3. Extensive support with strong API
4. Re-usability of code, while converting it from one platform to another with small UI tweaks

Official Websitehttps://www.appcelerator.com/Titanium/
Documentationhttps://docs.appcelerator.com/

8. Native Script

Native Script — Open-Source Framework To Create Native Mobile Applications

Technologies —
1. Angular
2. Vue
3. JavaScript
4. TypeScript
5. CSS

Features —
1. NativeScript is a 100% free and open-source framework for cross-platform development of native apps with 100% native API access for JavaScript, TypeScript, Angular.
2. It provides native performance.
3. We can use more than one frame in an app.
4. Developers can use any view as the root of an application.
5. NativeScript is surrounded by an enthusiastic and vibrant community.

Official Websitehttps://nativescript.org/
Documentation https://docs.nativescript.org/

7. jQuery Mobile

jQuery Mobile — Concise Cross-Browser JavaScript Framework

Technologies —
1. jQuery
2. HTML
3. CSS
4. JavaScript
5. Bootstrap

Features —
1. It is an open-source framework, and cross-platform as well as cross-browser compatible.
2. It is built on jQuery Core and the “write less, do more” UI framework.
3. It is written in JavaScript and uses features of both jQuery and jQuery UI for building mobile-friendly sites.
4. It includes an Ajax navigation system that uses animated page transitions.
5. It is compatible with other frameworks such as PhoneGap, Whitelight, etc.

Official Website https://jquerymobile.com/
Documentation https://learn.jquery.com/

6. Corona

Corona SDK — Create Compatible Cross-Platform Apps in Minimum Time

Technologies —
1. C/C++
2. Objective C
3. Java

Features —
1. The core Corona framework is completely free, including Corona Native which can be used to extend Corona with native languages (C/C++/Obj-C/Java).
2. It is exclusively developed for the development of cross-platform Mobile games development (Corona 2D and Corona 3D).
3. Having more than 1000 API and plugins, which makes it easy for any developer to transform their ideas into fascinating games and apps, making it optimal for cross-platform development.
4. Ability to Call any native library. You can call any native (C/C++/Obj-C/Java) library or use API.

Official Website https://coronalabs.com/
Documentation https://coronalabs.com/learn/

5. PhoneGap Cordova

PhoneGap Cordova — A Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Framework

Technologies —
1. HTML
2. CSS
3. JavaScript
4. jQuery
5. Bootstrap
6. Ajax

Features —
1. PhoneGap is the original and most popular distribution of Apache Cordova.
2. Originally the provider for PhoneGap Cordova was Adobe, now the provider is Apache.
3. Plugins are an integral part of the Cordova ecosystem.
4. Plugins are also not restricted to only open-source licenses.
5. Apache Cordova comes with a set of pre-developed plugins which provide access to the device’s camera, GPS, file system, etc.

Cordova :
Website — https://cordova.apache.org/
Documentation — https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/

Phonegap :
Official Website https://phonegap.com/
Documentation http://docs.phonegap.com/

4. Ionic

Ionic — Open-Source HTML5 Development Framework

Technologies —
1. Angular
2. React

Features —
1. Ionic framework is a free and open-source project which released under the MIT license.
2. Angular is responsible for making the Ionic great.
3. It offers the API needed for using native device functions with JavaScript code.
4. Ionic is designed to work and display beautifully on all current mobile devices and platforms.
5. It extends the CSS components with JavaScript functionalities to cover all mobile elements which cannot be done only with HTML and CSS.
6. Ionic Framework is built with simplicity in mind so that creating Ionic apps is enjoyable, easy to learn.
7. Ionic Framework is built on top of reliable, standardized web technologies: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using modern Web APIs such as Custom Elements and Shadow DOM.

Official Website https://ionicframework.com/
Documentation https://ionicframework.com/docs

3. Xamrin

Xamrin — A Coder’s Delight, Top-Notch Cross-Platform Tool

Technologies —
1. C#
2. .Net

Features —
1. Xamarin is an open-source platform for building modern and performant applications for iOS, Android, and Windows with .NET.
2. Xamarin is an open source app platform from Microsoft for building modern & performant iOS and Android apps with C# and .NET.
3. Xamarin.Forms is a separate product designed to create prototypes or simple mobile apps sharing 100 percent of the code across iOS and Android.
4. The Xamarin framework, thanks to its Xamarin.Forms, which provides Xamarin support building apps for TVs, wearables, and IoT.
5. Xamarin provides performance and user experience close to native.
6. Xamarin comes in one package with a complete development toolset, including its own IDE.
7. Xamarin University is a dedicated e-learning portal for people who are just getting familiar with the package.

Official Website https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/xamarin
Documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/

2. React Native

React Native — A Preferred Cross-Platform Solution for iOS and Android App Development

Technologies —
1. HTML
2. CSS
3. ES6
4. REACT

Features —
1. React Native is an open-source mobile application framework created by Facebook and released in 2015.
2. Fast Refresh, See your changes as soon as you save.
3. React components wrap existing native code and interact with native APIs via React’s declarative UI paradigm and JavaScript.
4. React Native lets you create truly native apps and doesn’t compromise your users’ experiences.
5. Developers can use native components controlled by JavaScript.
6. React Native uses Node Package Manager or NPM for installation and it is fairly easy to apply it.
7. Members of the React Native team frequently speak at various conferences.

Official Website https://reactnative.dev/
Documentation https://reactnative.dev/docs/getting-started

1. Flutter

Flutter — Seamless Creation of Awesome Mobile Applications

Technologies —
1. Dart Programming
2. Flutter Framework

Features —
1. Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase.
2. Both Flutter and Dart are open-source and free to use and provide extensive documentation and community support to help out with any issues.
3. Very Fast Development, Flutter’s hot reload helps quickly and easily experiment, build UIs, add features, and fix bugs faster.
4. With Flutter app development, there is a feature called Hot Reload which allows developers to render a change in sub-seconds.
5. Google’s Flutter provides enhanced flexibility, integration, and scalability capabilities.
6. Native Performance and Internationalised Flutter Libraries and a huge ready-to-use widget collection.
7. Flutter app development provides a one-stop solution to develop, deploy and manage change.

Official Website https://flutter.dev/
Documentation https://flutter.dev/docs

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SUMIT SHARMA
TheLeanProgrammer

Software Development Engineer, Stock Market Analyst, Fitness Coach, Video Editor, Freelancer