In recent times, mobile app development has become more comfortable thanks to the app development frameworks that help target both iOS and Android platforms. Few app development frameworks are apt enough to deliver a native user experience for iOS and Android platforms.
by Jamie Waltz
Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash
According to the CEO of IndianAppDevelopers, Mr. Juned Ghanchi, “Frameworks with cross-platform development and native UI building capabilities will remain popular. Other frameworks will have to follow the standard set by React Native and Flutter.”
Here we go with our top picks of mobile app development frameworks for 2020 and beyond.
React Native
React Native is considered a top JavaScript library developed by Facebook to create native applications that can run across all platforms. With React Native, one can build feature-rich and robust applications with a native look and feel on both iOS and Android. It allows using a single codebase for creating an app across multiple platforms.
Some of the key features that made React Native so famous include the following.
- Developers need to write less code.
- Works with all kinds of third-party plugins.
- Provides declarative API to build predictive UI.
- Reusability of code for app versions on iOS and Android.
- Ready to use components for cross-platform app projects.
Xamarin
Xamarin is a leading mobile app development framework that is built on Microsoft .Net technology. Developed and introduced by Microsoft, it comes as an open-source, cross-platform app development framework. Xamarin comes with both frontend and backend development tools and components. As a .Net based platform, it offers a full range of tools, libraries, and other programming languages that developers can use in their projects.
Some of the key Xamarin features that made it so famous include the following.
- It boasts of a large community of developers.
- It offers a flexible and scalable backend infrastructure.
- Offers an array of diagnostic and testing tools.
- It comes with a standalone application loader.
- It offers tools like Android SDK manager, storyboard files, and Google emulator manager.
Flutter
This framework developed and launched by Google is a fully-fledged software development kit that can help developing fast-paced, aesthetically beautiful, and native featured apps for all mobile platforms, desktop, and the web.
Some of the key pros that made Flutter so popular include the following.
- Flutter allowing 90% code reusability ensures faster development.
- Flutter offers a highly flexible and scalable UI
- Flutter can be used to build web, cross-platform apps and desktop apps with the same code.
- Flutter offers awesome native performance and user experience.
Ionic
Ionic is another popular open-source mobile app development framework. It is created with Angular and Cordova for making app rendering on multiple platforms easier. Ionic uses minimal DOM to boost performance and optimize efficiency through native APIs such as Ionic Native and Cordova.
Some of the key features that made Ionic so popular include the following.
- Ionic is exceptionally adaptable across platforms.
- It is a complete platform, an independent framework to build similar apps for iOS and Android.
- Developed using Angular, it offers the robust performance benefits of the Angular.
- Ionic offers inbuilt CLI (Command-line interface) to make things easier for developers.
Mobile Angular UI
Mobile Angular UI is another popular and widely used open-source mobile app development framework that is built using Bootstrap and Angular framework. It is known for providing many UI components like navigation bars, scrolling, overlays, switches, sidebars, etc.
Some of the key features and benefits that make this framework popular among developers include the following.
- It is a fully-fledged responsive framework to mitigate platform-specific UI differences.
- It comes loaded with a lot of interactive components.
- It is an extremely lightweight framework.
- It offers no jQuery dependencies.
- Through this framework, one can easily convert the web or desktop application to a mobile app.
Adobe PhoneGap
PhoneGap has been one of the leading and most popular mobile app frameworks for decades. PhoneGap is a fully-fledged open-source framework for cross-platform app projects. It uses the most dominant web languages, like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. This framework’s excellence can be explained in the way it can be developed as a native app to be deployed across all platforms and devices.
Some of the key features and benefits that make PhoneGap stands out from the rest to include the following.
- It can build cross-platform apps for all devices with the same code.
- It doesn’t need hardware configurations.
- It comes with a robust plugin library and a repository of third-party tools.
- It offers a robust and powerful support system.
- It is compatible with all platforms.
Appcelerator Titanium
Titanium is a well-known cross-platform development framework developed by Appcelerator Inc. This open-source framework uses a Javascript-based SDK loaded with more than 5000 APIs to build apps for desktop, Android, Windows, and iOS. The framework is also equipped with a multitude of UI components for delivering rich user experiences.
Some of the key features and benefits that made this framework popular include the following.
- It comes loaded with an array of features to deal with API management.
- It can help build both cross-platform mobile apps and web and desktop apps.
- It ensures easy API integration.
- With a single code base, it allows building apps for all platforms.
- With easy access to APIs and a more straightforward development process, it ensures fast-paced development.
Conclusion
We covered almost all the major frameworks that are still raging in popularity among app developers. In years ahead, frameworks with native UI elements and capabilities to deliver native user experience will become more popular.
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