Best Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks in 2023

9 Dec · 6 min read

"Cross-platform" means the type of software that is compatible with numerous computing platforms. Developers strive to provide better results with less cost and effort by utilizing technology that supports cross-platform and allows developers to code for the app to run successfully on multiple platforms. Many cross-platform app development tools and frameworks work with other mobile app development platforms. These tools and frameworks help you find the perfect and superior cross-platform framework to select for product development. The framework does not need different coding for separate platforms; it just needs coding once to run efficiently.

Top 7 Best Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks

1. Flutter - Flutter was launched in 2017 by Google. It is a cross-platform app framework designed to aid in the development of Android and iOS apps. It is mainly used for developing Google Fuschia apps. It allows apps to run on numerous platforms easily and with consistency. Flutter is one of the latest cross-platform app development frameworks that was created to help with iOS and Android.

Some of the features of Flutter include:

Flutter promotes portable GPUs that render UI power, allowing developers to work on cutting-edge interfaces.
Developers save time with Flutter because they don't have to make different interfaces for Android and iOS.
It has a reactive framework that helps by updating the UI contents; it updates the variables, and the UI changes are then visible automatically.
The cross-platform app framework Flutter is very cheap, so it is a great choice for making a minimum viable product.
Developers can easily convert a widget tree automatically with the Flutter cross-platform app framework.

2. Ionic - Ionic is a popular cross-platform app framework. It uses a combination of programming languages such as HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS to access platform controllers. Ionic helps developers create a flawless creative UI with user-friendly features in the app. Apps developed with this framework are highly interactive. Ionic is used for designing hybrid mobile apps using JavaScript. Ionic also helps in building cross-platform mobile apps, and you can create apps for any platform using one codebase. Ionic Framework is free and open-source, delivering high-quality cross-platform apps, and Ionic React influences React for creating hybrid mobile apps.

Some of the features of Ionic are:

The Ionic framework has countless ready-to-use UI components available.
Because it is specifically designed for mobile OS, the Ionic framework is based on the SAAS UI framework.
The developers need to know CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to design applications using Ionic.
Plugins are available in abundance to use on a smartphone as a feature.
It is an open-source front-end framework, which means that developers can change the structure of the code whenever they need to.

3. Xamarin - Microsoft owns an open-source cross-platform app development framework that uses the C# language, and Xamarin, a net framework for developing apps for Android, iOS, and Windows, was introduced in 2011. Xamarin is a streamlined framework that allows developers to reuse 90% of the code for building an app for three different platforms. Xamarin helps deliver aesthetic applications with its amazing APIs. It is compatible with hybrid mobile app development and provides the same performance and user experience.

Xamarin's development toolset includes:

Xamarin Visual Studio
Xamarin SDKs
Xamarin Test Cloud
Xamarin.Mac to build native Mac apps

Some of the features of Xamarin include:

It is extremely simple to use because developers only need to be familiar with.NET and C#.
Developers can effortlessly reuse other third-party codebases.
Xamarin offers compile-time checking, which lowers run-time errors while working.

4. React Native - React Native was created in 2015 and allows developers to build rendered cross-platform mobile apps. It is an open-source UI software framework based on JavaScript that can be used to write code that works on both Android and iOS.React Native helps developers write modules in Objective-C or Java, and with modules, developers can also execute functions like image editing, video processing, or other operations.

Some of the features of React Native include:

React Native focuses on the user experience, which results in a responsive interface. With this, React Native reduces the amount of time it takes for apps to load and provides a better user experience.
React Native is extremely compatible with third-party plugins.
You have to write code only once for platforms like Android and iOS. So, one-time coding cuts the app’s development time and reduces the cost of developing an app.

5. Node.js - Node.js framework is developed for creating cross-platform apps that are built on the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js is an open-source environment that develops server-side and scalable networking apps that are very efficient and reactive. It can handle multiple connections at the same time because it has a library of JavaScript modules that help programmers make applications.

Some of the features of Node.js include:

Node.js apps output the data and do not buffer.
Node.js takes less reaction time, and the developer can process all the data at the same time.
Node.js's library is very fast in its code execution process.
It is very flexible to manage various concurrent connections at the same time.
Node.js operates a single-threaded model with event-looping functionality to build flawless apps. This event mechanism authorises the server to react in a non-blocking manner and allows it to be more scalable.
After calling one API, servers operating Node.js don’t have to wait for data from other APIs; they can immediately move on to another. The server receives a response from the previous API call using a notification mechanism.

6. NativeScript - NativeScript was launched in 2014 and is an open-source mobile application development framework that allows the developer to create Android and iOS mobile apps using languages like JavaScript. NativeScript is perfect for developers who are exploring WORA functionality. It provides all native APIs that can be used to directly reuse existing NPM plugins in projects.NativeScript builds an accessible and glitch-free UI platform without using WebViews. Developers just have to describe it once, and then it will adapt automatically to operate anywhere.

Some of the features of NativeScript include:

NativeScript uses Angular and TypeScript for programming purposes.
NativeScript can even customize the user interfaces for specific devices and screens.
It keeps elements like CocoaPods and calls for strategies from NativeScript libraries.
NativeScript gives easy access to native Android and iOS APIs.

7. PhoneGap - PhoneGap was first created in 2005. In 2011, Adobe bought PhoneGap from Nitobi. PhoneGap is also known as Cordova. It is a highly rated cross-platform framework for mobile development that uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. PhoneGap also allows developers to share their apps in the development stage with other developers for feedback. It also supports in-built device features such as GPS, camera, phonebook, storage, etc.

Some of the features of PhoneGap include:

PhoneGap-developed apps run consistently on all mobile OS platforms with very few differences.
Because they have a pluggable architecture, the APIs can be added to in small pieces.
PhoneGap also gives you the option to use JavaScript or other built-in languages in the library to manage relationships in your app.

Final Note

Most mobile engineers use cross-platform mobile development frameworks to develop applications for multiple platforms using a single codebase, such as Android and iOS. The biggest advantage of the cross-platform mobile development framework is the shareable code, which can save time by bypassing the requirement to write another code for each operating system, which can accelerate the development process.

App Development

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