Top 4 Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks in 2021

Mobiles have taken over the world by leaps and bounds. Presently, there are over 3 billion mobile users worldwide. One of the most helpful features of smartphones is a mobile app. Mobile apps play a huge role in our routine lives. Through them, we can access almost everything including booking movie shows, ordering food, listening to music, etc.

The advancement of mobile app development technologies has added spice to the mobile app market. One technology that has gained popularity over the years is cross-platform app development. It is a mobile app development approach where developers build a single codebase and develop apps across multiple platforms.

In this post, I will discuss the top 4 cross-platform app frameworks that are rocking in 2021. Let’s begin!

React Native

React Native is the most widely used open-source cross-platform mobile framework. Based on React, React Native is a product of Facebook. React Native allows developers to develop native applications for both Android and iOS. This framework is supported by a strong community of developers who keep on performing constant improvements in its build. React Native possesses the capability to blend the best of React.js and JavaScript. Some compelling features of this framework that every React Native development company needs to know include:-

• Faster development times
• Cost-effective and time-saving
• Rich ecosystem of tools and libraries
• Constant growth

Facebook Ads Manager, AirBnB, Myntra, and Bloomberg are some of the popular apps built over React Native.

Flutter

Flutter is the biggest competitor of React Native. Although it is a newer cross platform app framework as compared to RN, it is giving a tough competition. To define, Flutter is an open-source framework developed by Google. The developers can use Flutter to develop apps for iOS, Android, Linux, web, Google Fuchsia, Windows, and Mac from a single codebase. Flutter is written in Dart (language developed by Google), C, and C++. The major components of Flutter framework are design-specific widgets, Flutter engine, Dart platform, and foundation library.

Some appealing features of Flutter include:-

• Faster development times
• Hot Reloading
• Layered architecture for customization and fast rendering
• Less testing
• Consistent UI

Flutter vs React native is an often followed term on Google nowadays due to their some similar features and other offerings.

PhoneGap

PhoneGap is an open source framework to develop cross-platform applications. Currently, it is available for Windows, Android, iOS, and Electron platforms. The mobile app developers can code in a hassle-free way with PhoneGap. Developed by Adobe, PhoneGap provides cloud-based solutions to develop mobile applications directly in each platform.

Some powerful features of PhoneGap include:-

• Development flexibility
• App development for multiple frameworks
• Wide range of UI libraries
• Faster app development
• Large developer community

Ionic

Ionic app development framework makes cross-platform app development much easier as compared to others. It is an open-source app framework which is licensed under MIT. For translation to native apps, Ionic uses HTML5. In terms of design and structure, Ionic is quite similar to AngularJS. With Ionic, developers can build apps for iOS and Android. Additionally, they can develop PWAs, i.e., progressive web apps.

Some appealing features of Ionic cross platform framework are:-

• Based on SAAS
• Large community of around 5M developers
• Built on AngularJS and Apache Cordova
• Widely used for both native and progressive web apps

Additionally, it is notable that Ionic utilizes front-end technologies such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.

In Conclusion

Cross-platform app development provides a great advantage in the mobile app market for SMEs, startups, and other large enterprises. A major part of the mobile app market is shared by Android and iOS, so almost every leading cross platform framework emphasizes on advancements towards them.

To choose the best cross-platform app framework, you can refer to the list provided above. With right technology in your favor, you can come up with the best approach for business growth.