Cross-platform frameworks offer mobile app developers a comprehensive suite of Android development tools intended to raise throughput by addressing common problems.
In this blog post, I have tried to answer the most prevailing question these days.
Which android app development framework is the best for you? I’ve curated the list of top cross-platform frameworks for android app development.
With more than 3 million apps, the Android operating system won the mobile platform game long ago from the likes of iOS, Blackberry 10, and Windows Phone despite being late to the market.
Today, not just individuals, but also SMBs, SMEs, and large enterprises are driving the adoption of the mobile platform, which is further pressing its market share to new heights.
The problem is native development in Android is not child’s play, small businesses often neither have the required in-house expertise nor have the resources to outsource the app development to a mobile development firm.
This is where these cross-platform frameworks for mobile app development came in.
Best Android App Development Frameworks in 2024
1. React Native
React Native is the preferred cross-platform framework for mobile app development in 2024. Instagram, Airbnb, Walmart, Tesla, Baidu, and many other Fortune 500 companies use it.
Why Native? Because it is difficult to differentiate an app developed using React Native app from an app built with Objective-C or Java.
Changes in source code reflect in the app preview window in real-time.
For hybrid development, React Native can combine native code with components programmed in Java, or Kotlin.
Read Also: Best Tools for Android Development
2. Ionic
Ionic is used to build native mobile apps for every mobile platform on a single codebase. Thanks to native plugins, it’s really simple to integrate features like Bluetooth, and fingerprint authentication into an app.
Ionic is preferred by developers looking for high performance and optimization when using other tools.
Apps developed with Ionic not only have faster development cycles and a native look and feel but also perform well in line with apps developed with Android Studio.
3. PhoneGap
PhoneGap is popular and has Adobe as its primary developer. At its heart is Apache Cordova, an open-source framework that enables developers to develop apps using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.
It makes to the list owing to its sheer popularity and a huge plugin library, 3rd party tools, and flourishing community. There is a desktop app and a mobile app.
The desktop application is for building the app and the mobile app is to see the changes made on the desktop and test them.
Read Also: Top Mobile App Development Trends
4. NativeScript
NativeScript brings together the three most popular technologies for building web applications—JavaScript, Angular, and Typescript—to create apps with native UI and from a single code-base. A Bulgarian technology company Telerik backs NativeScript.
If you’re are comfortable writing codes in the above-mentioned programming languages, you can get started the plenty of resources and detailed tutorials on the official website.
5. Xamarin
Xamarin developers use a single code-base written in C#, a programming language developed by Microsoft within its .NET initiative and later approved as a standard by Ecma and ISO, to develop native apps for iOS, Android, and Windows.
Xamarin is targeted towards .NET developers trying to enter the app development sphere but is not well-versed with Java, Kotlin, and Android Studio.
They can take advantage of Xamarin for Visual Studio, and all its advanced features: code completion, IntelliSense, and debugging of apps on devices or the simulator.
Xamarin Test Cloud can test your apps on 2,000 real devices in the cloud, which is enough to deal with fragmentation Android is infamous for.
6. Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch is an enterprise-focused framework for developing cross-platform Android apps. For developing a high-performance business app, Sencha leverages hardware acceleration techniques.
Sencha has a native library of 50 built-in UI components and native-looking themes, which makes building native-looking apps simpler.
A distinctive feature of Sencha is a robust data package. The package draws data from the backend data sources to form sets of data using very functional models that deliver features such as sorting and filtering.
Read Also: Why Going With Android for Business App Development Makes Sense
7. Mobile Angular UI
With Mobile Angular UI, developers use Angular framework together with Bootstrap to build remarkable mobile app user experiences without dependency on jQuery or any other Bootstrap libraries.
Moreover, numerous UI components like scrollable ranges, navigation bars, switches, overlays, and more that developers can use to develop unified mobile applications. Users will be introduced with a smooth, intuitive, and beautiful UI.
8. Cordova
Corona SDK claims to accelerate your mobile development efforts by 10-times, apps, or games. Corona app backend framework is built over Lua, a lightweight multi-paradigm programming language with an emphasis on rapidity, lightness, extensibility, and simplicity.
Head over the official website that covers everything from the Cordova basics to advanced subjects. Corona SDK, available for both Windows and macOS, supports real-time testing.
9. Appcelerator Titanium
The Appcelerator Titanium framework is a suite of mobile development tools to build, test, deploy optimized apps. A developer can call API using JavaScript. These APIs call native features of the targeted mobile OS, bringing brilliant performance and native appearance to the app.
Titanium is a visual process of app development that uses pre-built, drag-and-drop-enabled code blocks. Of course, a programmer can write lines of code if he is comfortable with coding and requires greater control and greater precision which the visual editor can’t deliver.
Mobile Lifecycle dashboard lets you test and monitor the finished apps during their lifetime and gathers valuable insight into app performance.
10. TheAppBuilder
A preferred cross-development framework for developing enterprise apps, TheAppBuilder’s codeless user interface enables quick app development. It is the fastest way to create apps with company presentations and display other information.
Pre-built blocks for push notifications, comments, opinion polls, content updates, analytics, etc., and direct integration with Google Play, TheAppBuilder makes it possible to complete app development in the shortest time and publish the app in a single click on the Google Play store.
Everything that matters
Irrespective of which mobile development framework you pick, don’t be scared to change your mind if you find a better viable framework. Cross-platform frameworks are enormously unpredictable and new versions keep coming.
Their motive is to turn a faint idea into a mobile app. Given the circumstances, it doesn’t matter whether you achieve this goal by means of the newest high-tech framework that every person talks about or a well-known framework that is showing its age.
Author Bio:
Shahid Mansuri Co-founded Peerbits, one of the leading mobile app development USA, in 2011. His visionary leadership and flamboyant management style have yielded fruitful results for the company.
The information was very good for Android developers to build an app.