What Are the Best Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Tools in 2020

Developing a mobile app is not challenging, but selecting the right platform is. Android vs iOS: Which one to choose? This question often lingers in the minds of businesses while developing an app for their business. Thus, their minds go straight to cross-platform app development. 

Cross-platform has earned a reputation for being one of the popular app development trends because they are convenient and dynamic, and it is easier to build a highly-standardized app using cross-platform tools. Cross-platform frameworks produce identical UI designs, and usability across platforms makes your app available to a larger audience.

How Can You Pick the Right Cross-Platform App Development Framework?

Before you choose a cross-platform development tool, keep the following parameters in mind:

• Performance and Popularity
• Speed considerations
• Feature support
• Code reusability and rich-repository
• Easy to learn and supports all aspects of cross-platform development.
• Development cost
• Ability to access device capabilities

7 Popular Cross-Platform App Development Tools That Will Rule in 2020

But what are the best cross-platform mobile app development tools to choose from? As somebody who’s been associated with an app development company for several years, I can save your time and money by guiding you through the process to ensure that you select a cross-platform tool that is best suited for your needs.

React Native

React Native is a free and open-source mobile app development framework created by Facebook in 2015. It renders mobile applications for iOS and Android with the help of JavaScript only. 

React Native developers just need to code once, and the mobile app is ready for iOS and Android. Being the most popular cross-platform mobile tool, React Native is used globally, and around 42% of software developers use React Native only.

Key Features of React Native:

• Known for strong performance
• Code reusability
• Offers intuitive UI
• Cost-effective in nature
• Supports third-party plugins

Ionic

Ionic is a free, open-source, and leading tool for seamlessly developing mobile apps and PWAs (Progressive Web Apps). You can build Ionic mobile apps with either Angular.JS, React.JS, Vue.JS, or HTML5. 

Being an easy-to-learn tool, Ionic ensures that you have no problem hiring developers for your project. Apart from that, it gives you a faster time-to-market on both iOS and Android with its ease of maintenance.

Key Features of Ionic:

• Absolutely free plus open-source
• Huge and active community with popular technologies
• Works on one code for all
• Accessibility of Cordova Plugins
• Offers high standards of UI

Xamarin

Xamarin is a cross-platform app development tool owned by Microsoft that allows you to build high-performing apps for different platforms, such as Windows, iOS, and Android, with a single code, i.e., .net code.

Xamarin facilitates faster and easier cross-platform mobile app development and also supports other tech products like wearable devices, including Apple and Android watches.

Key Features of Xamarin:

• One code works on multiple platforms
• Offers strong and flawless UI
• Supports a variety of libraries
• Cost-effective and time-saving tool
• Allows testing during app development

Flutter

Flutter is yet another free and open-source Software Development Kit (SDK) by Google that develops apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and more. It uses Dart's native compilers to compile Flutter code in the Native ARM machine code. 

If you are looking to develop a custom application for both iOS and Android platforms, Flutter development is an ideal choice for you as it offers faster code writing and execution features.

Key Features of Flutter:

• Hot reloading for error-free development
• Supports a widget to enhance the app's look
• Uses Google's Dart programming language
• Considered to be perfect for MVP
• Easy to set up and provides official support

Adobe PhoneGap

Adobe PhoneGap is an open-source and known as one of the best cross-platform tools to use in 2020, developed by Adobe Cordova's team. It demands skills like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create an app for Android, iOS, and Windows, using just a single codebase.

Being a widely adopted cross-platform development framework, PhoneGap is a highly reliable platform and compatible with various mobile application development platforms.

Key Features of Adobe PhoneGap:

• Access to Native APIs
• A way into the large community base
• Cost-effective and flexible
• Gives robust backend support
• UI libraries improve UI

Corona SDK

Corona SDK is a free and single codebase SDK developed by Corona Labs in 2009. It is a powerful tool to create 2D games and apps for Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Kindle, Apple TV, Android TV, and more using Lua (a very lightweight and fast programming language). Optimized for better performance and stability, apps built with Corona SDK have high-quality and high-speed development.

Key Features of Corona SDK:

• Leverage lightweight and faster programming language
• The larger community of expert developers
• Includes interactivity and graphic content in apps
• Make app smoother and consistent with FPS

jQuery Mobile 

jQuery Mobile is an HTML5-based framework created by the jQuery project team. It uses a single codebase to create responsive applications for different platforms like Android, iPhone, Windows, and others. The best thing about jQuery is that it also lets you create highly responsive and user-friendly websites.

Key Features of jQuery Mobile:

• Creates a custom theme using ThemeRoller feature
• Leverages the power of CSS3 along with HTML5
• Allows the same code to scale from to desktop screen. 

Key Takeaways: Mobile apps are the future of businesses. Using these cross-platform app development tools can help you build apps for multiple platforms and attain maximum users globally.

Do you have any questions about cross-platform app development tools? Feel free to share your thoughts with us!