Best Mobile App Development Frameworks to Trust in 2023
You must have used numerous apps for numerous reasons till date, but have you ever wondered what’s the process of creating these apps, and what are the advantages/disadvantages of each?
Well, it’s not just a matter of writing code and magically transforming it into a fully-functional app. Instead, there are several mobile app development frameworks, out of which, developers choose the suitable one for the sort of app needed.
Yes, it highly depends upon what sort of app you are looking for to be developed. However, there are a few frameworks that work better in majority cases than others when it comes to creating user-friendly, smooth, safe, and bug-free apps.
But what exactly are mobile app development frameworks?
In short, they’re software tools that provide a foundation for building mobile apps. Rather than starting from scratch, developers can use these frameworks to create apps more efficiently by leveraging pre-built code, libraries, and templates. This way, they can focus on the unique aspects of their app and avoid reinventing the wheel with every new project.
Most Popular Mobile App Development Frameworks
The importance of mobile app development frameworks cannot be overstated. Without them, building mobile apps would be much more time-consuming and expensive.
There are many different mobile app development frameworks available, and choosing the right one needs knowledge. Don’t rely 100% on any app development company. You must know the basics for sure, if you’re on the verge of getting your own app developed.
First, let’s cherish the benefits of Mobile app development, and then we’ll present to you the list of the best mobile app development frameworks keeping our 10+ years of experience in the center.
What Are the Benefits of Mobile Development?
No matter if it’s about entertainment, improving productivity, or managing schedules, we use various mobile applications for our own advantages. But is your experience smooth, always? Certainly not! You also come across various sluggish and malfunctioning apps, which you straightaway uninstall from your device.
What if your own app functions like that? The same is going to happen with your app too!
So, the primary reason for hiring a highly dependable app developer company is vital.
Let’s now check more advantages of professional mobile app development.
Boosts Customer Engagement
Customized business apps help create a direct channel between the enterprise and customers, enabling direct and effective communication.
Improves Efficiency
Business apps are tailored to suit business requirements, so they perform diverse functions, increase employee productivity, and, in turn, business ROI.
Provide More Value to Customers
Creating a customer-loyalty program within your mobile app will allow your customers to receive their loyalty points or rewards via the app instead of the traditional collection card. This can result in more app downloads as well as return customers.
Build Brand Awareness and Recognition
Mobile apps are like blank billboard signs – the perfect tool to showcase what your brand stands for. They help strengthen your brand and educate your customers. The more you get customers involved via the app, the more likely they’ll trust you and engage in your brand.
Boost Profits
It’s important to keep the costs low while developing mobile apps for businesses. Launching a mobile app in addition to a responsive brand website is a great strategy to boost sales while enhancing customer experience. These apps encourage more purchases as they are easier to use.
Most Popular Mobile App Development Frameworks
React Native
Reасt Nаtive is а JаvаSсriрt-based арр development frаmеwоrk released by Fасebооk in 2018. Since then, it has maintained its high demand worldwide. You’ll be stunned to know that 42% of mobile аррlication programmers use it regularly. But why is React Native so popular? Well, by using this framework, developers can conveniently create аррs with а nаtive feel and lооk fоr all sorts of deviсes.
The developers can use a single соde and perform cross-platform development, and that’s what makes Reасt Nаtive exceptionally popular in the app development market. There’s a continuous hike in the percentage of start-ups using this app. This framework doesn’t just save time and cost for the startups, but also gives them a competitive edge in their niche.
Flutter
Flutter is basically a mobile app SDK that was developed by Google. It will help you in a lot of ways while you create visually appealing, native-like applications. It can be used for various operating systems and devices. You will have to use just a single codebase.
In short, Flutter is an open-source mobile app development framework. You can use its widgets to make responsive mobile applications with ease. Flutter’s widgets contain some awesome pre-built elements, which you can further customize to suit your specific design requirements in your project. Also, you can use Flutter to easily carry on your existing applications development projects and modify them to bring the best results in the shortest possible time.
Flutter has a 2D graphics engine called Skia. This graphics engine is fantastic if you want to create a truly native feel in your applications. The Skia function of Flutter can make your clients happy who want their applications to be intuitive and easy to use. It’ll ensure a smooth and responsive user interface.
Xamarin
You can use Microsoft’s Xamarin as an open-source, cross-platform mobile app development framework. It will help you develop high-quality mobile apps by using a software framework, which contains programming languages like .Net and C#. You can easily create flexible native performance mobile apps with Xamarin. It will provide end-users with a unique user experience.
Among the biggest benefits of Xamarin, is the ability it offers you to help you build an entire ecosystem including a backend, API, components, and more. Also, you can integrate additional tools, libraries, and programming languages that you prefer while developing with Xamarin.
Cross-platform ability of Xamarin, as we mentioned earlier, will allow you to make a single codebase to build mobile apps for both iOS and Android platforms. It’ll save both your time and cost. Xamarin will also allow you to easily access native APIs and features of each platform. It’ll ensure that the apps you create are optimized for each platform.
Ionic
If you want a free орen-sоurсe mоbile аррliсаtiоn frаmewоrk bаsed оn Аngulаr аnd Арасhe Соrdоvа, go for Iоniс. It helps creating сrоss-рlаtfоrm mоbile аррs fоr three рlаtfоrms: iОS, Windоws, and Аndrоid. Iоniс-built mоbile аррliсаtiоns offer seamless performance besides being robust and feаture-riсh.
Its Iоniс frаmewоrk lets develорers tо integrаte UI elements including асtiоn sheets, nаvigаtiоn menus, filters, fоrms, list views, etc tо strengthen арр design.
When develорers hаve exрerienсe in соding lаnguаges suсh аs JаvаSсriрt, HTML, оr СSS аnd the business owner wаnts tо create high-рerfоrmаnсe, hybrid/сrоss-рlаtfоrm, interactive mоbile аррs аnd рrоgressive web аррs, the Iоniс frаmewоrk is perfect.
Swiftic
Do you want to create seamless iOS apps in the shortest time possible? Swiftic is a mobile app development framework specially designed to help create iOS apps. Developers love using Swiftic due to its user-friendliness. You’ll enjoy its user-friendly interface that simplifies platform navigation. You can quickly create and publish iOS apps with Swiftic, even if your coding experience isn’t exceptionally good.
If you’re a beginner or intermediate, we recommend Swiftic. You can try it without any hesitation as it offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all of its plans. If you have a huge plan on developing a robust iOS app, a 6-month success guarantee is there.
It means that if you can’t achieve the expected results you desired, you’ll receive 6 months of free service. If we talk about Swiftic’s main features, you get premium mobile app templates, push notifications, and loyalty programs. These features will make your development process much more efficient and effective.
Apache Cordova
Apache Cordova is a highly popular open-source mobile app development framework using which developers can build mobile apps using web technologies such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.
It was originally developed by Nitobi Software, which was later acquired by Adobe Systems. Apache Cordova is an extension of the PhoneGap framework, which was released by Nitobi Software in 2009. The framework allows developers to write once and deploy across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, and Windows.
As per our experienced app developers, compatibility is the biggest benefit of cross-platform compatibility Apache Cordova. We can use just a single codebase and create high-performance apps that work on numerous platforms. So, no need to shed money on maintaining separate apps for different platforms.
Not just that, the framework supports a huge range of plugins that provide access to native device features such as camera, GPS, and accelerometer, allowing developers to create apps with native-like UI and functionality.
strong community support is another thing to admire. The vast community of developers frequently contribute to the development of the framework, create plugins, and provide support to other developers.
Talking about the disadvantages of using Apache Cordova, the biggest one is performance. This framework is based on web technologies, meaning that it can’t compete with native apps in terms of overall performance.
If you’re planning for a graphics-intensive application, better don’t go with Apache Cordova. Also, your app’s functionality may be limited because this framework may not provide access to all native features of a device.
Onsen UI
When it comes to formulating highly complicated and function-rich mobile applications, Onsen UI has always proven to be a great choice. Being among the leading technologies for mobile app development, you can expect creating tremendous and highly attractive HTML apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript by using Osen UI.
Also, Osen UI helps the libraries like Angular 2+, Reacts, AngularJS1, and Vue. This platform has competency in the app’s formation depending on the platform.
Its collection of UI elements includes stack navigation, lists, forms, tabs, etc. With version 2, this framework has evolved as JS framework-agnostic, letting developers build mobile applications with or without any JS framework. Besides all that, you can also expect strong community support. On the downside, like Apache Cordova only, this framework isn’t a top choice for graphics-intensive applications.
NativeScripts
NativeScript is a medium-level popular open-source framework suitable for building mobile apps entrusted with Vue.js, JavaScript, CSS, Angular, and Typescript developed by Progress.
NativeScript provides access to native APIs, making it possible to create high-performance, native mobile applications without sacrificing performance or user experience. There are several other app development frameworks available in the market that offer similar functionality, such as React Native, Xamarin, Flutter, and Ionic, and that’s the reason NativeScript isn’t counted among the most popular ones.
NativeScript uses the V8 engine to run JavaScript code, and it translates the JavaScript code into native code that can run on both iOS and Android platforms. Also it provides access to the native APIs of iOS and Android platforms, allowing developers to use platform-specific features like camera, GPS, and push notifications. This access is provided through JavaScript APIs that are mapped to the native APIs.
NativeScript allows developers to share code between the iOS and Android versions of the app. This means that developers can write code once and use it on both platforms, reducing the development time and effort.
jQuery Mobile
jQuery Mobile is a Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern based framework that allows developers to create mobile web applications that look and feel like native mobile apps. It provides a set of UI widgets like buttons, lists, forms, and dialogs that can be used to create the user interface of the mobile app.
These widgets are designed to work well on both desktop and mobile devices, and they have a consistent look and feel across different platforms. Our expert team has developed 7-8 decent mobile apps using jQuery Mobile, and all have earned good user reviews considering UI and UX.
Further, jQuery Mobile uses responsive design principles to ensure that the mobile app looks good on different screen sizes and orientations. It uses CSS media queries to adjust the layout and styling of the app based on the device’s screen size. What does that mean? Well, a decent UX!
What else is positive on the UX side?
jQuery Mobile provides touch and swipe support, allowing users to interact with the mobile app using gestures like swiping, tapping, and pinching. Now, that’s something that makes the app feel more like a native mobile app and provides a better user experience. That’s what almost all app users desire for.
Besides that, it uses Ajax navigation to load pages and content dynamically, without the need to reload the entire page. This makes the app faster and more responsive, and it allows users to navigate through the app more quickly.
Соrоnа SDK
The Corona SDK is a dependable framework, mostly popular for creating mobile game apps. Designer City, Zip Zap, and Gunman Taco Truck are some of the greatest examples of successful game apps developed using this framework.
It is a cross-platform framework using which developers can build high-quality mobile applications quickly and easily, laying great emphasis on speed, simplicity, and flexibility, and that’s what a game app needs, right?
It provides a streamlined and efficient environment for building applications, and that’s why even less experienced app developers feel comfortable using this framework. We get support for a great range of graphics and animation tools, as well as audio and video playback.
What our expert game developer team at Virva Infotech love about Corona SDK is its high high speed and efficiency. The framework is designed to optimize code for maximum speed, which means that applications built using Corona SDK can be highly responsive and performant. This is especially important for mobile applications, which must run on a variety of different devices with varying hardware capabilities.
Types of App Development Frameworks
Native App Development Frameworks
Native app development frameworks are software tools that help developers create mobile applications for a specific operating system using the programming languages and tools the platform provides.
Let us simplify that. In simple language, native frameworks enable developers to write code that is optimized for a specific platform, which further helps in making the app faster, more responsive, and more user friendly. Such apps do well in the long run. Since native app development frameworks use platform-specific tools and APIs, developers can take advantage of the entire range of features and capabilities the platform offers.
Advantages and disadvantages of using native app development frameworks
There are numerous benefits to using native app development frameworks. For one, native apps tend to have better performance and responsiveness in contrast to hybrid/cross-platform apps, mainly because the code is optimized for the specific platform.
Native apps also have better access to platform-specific features and APIs, which can hold great importance for apps demanding advanced functionality or access to hardware components such as cameras, sensors, microphones, etc.
Users also enjoy a better user experience, because these apps are dedicatedly designed for a given platform, making them more accurate and targeted. So, these apps can take advantage of platform-specific design guidelines and best practices.
Keep in mind, like other types of frameworks, Native app development frameworks also have disadvantages. It can be expensive, and on most occasions, pretty time consuming too.
Additionally, maintaining and updating native apps can be more challenging, since changes made to one codebase may not automatically apply to the other most of the time. We can’t expect it to be as flexible or scalable as hybrid or cross-platform apps, keeping in mind that native apps are tied to a specific platform.
Hybrid App Development Frameworks
Unlike Native app development frameworks, Hybrid app development frameworks allow developers to create mobile apps that can run on multiple platforms using a single codebase. There’s no need for separate codebases for each platform. So, developers can conveniently use technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create apps that can be deployed on iOS, Android, and other platforms without compromising on performance.
These types of frameworks use a combination of native app code and web technologies. So, developers can reap advantage of the performance and hardware access of native apps and also leverage the flexibility and cross-platform compatibility of web technologies. So, now you know why a large percentage of mobile apps running today were developed using this development framework?
Hybrid app development frameworks are highly adopted by startups, mostly because of cost-effectiveness (because multiple codebases aren’t needed, and manpower is saved), and level of flexibility on offer.
Advantages and disadvantages of using hybrid app development frameworks
Hybrid apps can be developed more quickly and cost-effectively than native apps as discussed up there, since a single codebase can be used for numerous platforms. These apps can also provide a consistent user experience across different platforms, since the same codebase is used for each platform. That means you actually target a larger audience for downloading your app.
Maintaining and updating hybrid app development frameworks has always been simple and cost-effective. It’s also possible to integrate them with web services and APIs, enabling developers to create apps that leverage the full power of the web.
However, in comparison to native apps, hybrid ones have lesser access to hardware features because of their dependence on web technologies to some extent. Additionally, hybrid apps may not be able to take full advantage of platform-specific features and APIs, which can limit their functionality in some cases.
Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks
The functioning of Cross-platform app development frameworks is pretty similar to the previously discussed Hybrid app development frameworks. Here also, developers write code once and simply deploy it on multiple platforms.
We can divide Cross-platform app development frameworks into two categories: those using native app components (for example, Xamarin and React Native) and those using web technologies (for example Ionic and PhoneGap). The choice of framework depends on the project’s specific needs, as well as the development team’s expertise. However, expert teams like the one at Virva Infotech can take any challenge when it comes to developing ultra-complex Cross-platform apps.
Advantages and disadvantages of using cross-platform app development frameworks
Since you’re writing the code once, it’s much quicker to develop and deploy your app across multiple platforms. This means you can get your app to market faster and stay ahead of the competition. Honestly saying, by using a single codebase, you can save money on development costs. It’s also cheaper to maintain and update your app since you only have to make changes in one place.
However, Cross-platform frameworks can’t always access all of the features and functionalities of each platform. Thet directly means reduced functionality and user experience for certain features that require platform-specific integration.
Key differences and similarities between popular mobile app development frameworks
We read in-depth about all three popular categories of app development frameworks, and now, let’s understand key similarities and differences between these three.
For native app development, some of the most popular frameworks include Swift (for iOS), Java (for Android), and Kotlin (for Android). These are optimized for their respective platforms, and provide awesome performance and access to hardware features.
For hybrid app development, Ionic, PhoneGap, and React Native are some of the most popular frameworks. These use a mix of web technologies and native code to develop apps that can run on numerous platforms using a single codebase. Here, you compromise on certain grounds such as access to hardware features and performance level, but on the positive side, you’re saving on your investments.
For cross-platform app development, some of the most popular frameworks include Xamarin, React Native, and Flutter. Using these, developers write code once and deploy it on multiple platforms, and can provide access to platform-specific features and APIs. functionality is an issue here. That means in case you want a highly functional or feature-intense app, better don’t go with cross-platform app development frameworks.
Conclusion
So, what’s the bottom line? Aren’t you feeling somewhat confused?
Obviously you must be, because there are so many types and advantages/disadvantages. For a non-technical person, it’s exceptionally tough which framework will suit the best for which app. Half-knowledge doesn’t prove to be helpful here. You must have certain goals to attain with your app, and considering the current competition, you must understand that nothing less than “perfect” would do!
So, feel free to discuss your project with our 10 years experienced mobile and web development team at Virva Infotech. Consulting is free of cost, so do it today!