Why Do Cross-Platform App Frameworks Famous in 2021?
In today’s extremely troubled and Darwinian mobile app development world, businesses wouldn’t hazard missing their presence on either platform: Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
Budgeting, however, is normally an issuing if businesses go for native apps. This is why cross-platform app development has emerged as the nonpareil superior of businesses that aim for an existence on Android as well as iOS.
Before we move on to find out where this category of frameworks stands in 2021, let’s observe few basics about them.
The Difference Between Native and Cross-Platform App Development
Native vs. cross-platform is a never-ending debate that has broken the tech community separated for years. There are a couple of experts who choose native apps over cross-platform apps. On the other hand, companies like Uber are coming up with their cross-platform app framework — Ribs — to rewrite their driver app.
Both native and cross-platform app development technologies are in a changeless state of evolution. This changing quality of technologies signals that these topics should be coming together from time to time to check which of these derivatives are presently leading the game.
Native app development eschews the simplicity of creating a sustainable product that spans multiple platform app development and focusing on generating an effective design that stays adjacent to the target platform–Android, iOS, etc.
Cross-platform frameworks seek to make an app that reaches out to as numerous followers of your brand as accomplishable by covering a broad number of end devices during the programming and creation process.
Challenges in Cross-platform App Development Process
A couple of years back, the cross-platform app development was forced to make simplex mobile apps and games. Over time, emerging technologies have made cross-platform development more convertible, powerful, and flexible than before.
However, cross-platform development still faces questioning like: Performance singultus because of conflicting communication between the native and non-native components of gadgets. Cross-platform developers discover maintaining cross-compliance of apps with restricted tools.
Performance-related defects can lead to miserable user experience. If your business app manages much of a corporate and the user’s data, then going for cross-platform apps is not a good idea as per security concerns. But, these challenges are marginal when compared to the welfares it has.
Benefits of Cross-Platform App Development
Gautam Agrawal, major director of product management at Sencha stated that:
Given the exponential gain in the cost of per platform development and the demand for speedy time to market, cross-platform development is the manner to go for the enterprise.
1. Maximum Exposure to the Target Audience
Leveraging a mobile cross-platform development formulation enables you to build an app and deploy over assorted platforms, including the web. This means that by building a single app, one can reference both — iOS and Android platforms, thus, increasing their reach.
2. Reduced Development Cost
The cross-platform app development is supported on the concept ‘write once, run everywhere’. Reusable codes and agile app development through tools can decrease the cost of development. Therefore, in order to amend your business on multiple platforms and tools in a cost-effective way, there is no other secondary to cross-platform apps.
3. Easier Maintenance & Deployment
Since there’s only one developed app that runs over all platforms, it is casual to hold back as well as deploy code or changes made. Updates can quickly be synced over all platforms and devices, thus saving time and money. Moreover, if a bug is found in the common codebase, it should be fixed once. In this way, developers can rescue a lot on time and money.
4. Quicker Development Process
The flying development process is another win-win situation when it comes to developing cross-platform apps. Single source code for twofold platforms can help cut down the development endeavors by 50 to 80%. It helps you to acquire a feature-rich business app in less time. The team of developers can fitting the expected deadlines in cross-platform app development.
5. Reusable Code
Another cracking thing about this platform is that the code can be utilised once again and again. Instead of developers developing new codes for all platform, an individual code can be reused. This saves time as well as resources because it get rid of repetition in the task of creating codes.
6. Easy Integration with Cloud
Cross-platform mobile apps are entirely harmonious and can take vantage of respective plugins integrated with the cloud settings. In other words, the individualist source code is integrated with different plug-ins and extensions to enhance the app’s scalability and functionality.
7. Faster Time-to-Market and Customization
As we mentioned above ‘write once, run everywhere’ is the conception that is preceded while building cross-platform app development. It permits app developers to cut down Time-to-Market (TTM) with a flying deployment.
Also, if you demand to transform or customize the app, it’s effortless for the developers to do major changes in an individual code. This, further, helps to present products more swiftly than the competitors by rising customer engagement.
8. Uniform Design
Users can recognize user interface (UI) elements, and anticipate their interactions over different platforms. Therefore, User Experience (UX) is an essential thing to reckon for any app or software.
It’s hard to sync the respective development projects while developing multiple apps. Cross-platform mobile development tools permit developers as well as designers to physique a multiform user experience that app users can relish.
How to Pick the Right Mobile App Development Framework
There are respective cross-platform app frameworks out there, each with their own set of pros and cons. However, as per the following direction, we have picked the most competing and top-performing frameworks accessible today.
Top 5 Cross-Platform App Frameworks
1. Xamarin: Loved by Developers, Trusted by Enterprise
Xamarin was launched in 2011 as a self-directed cross-app development framework but was subsequent acquired by Microsoft in 2016, thus lending it more believability than before.
It is an open-source framework that was launched to figure out the problem of disjointed native technology stacks, which made mobile app development an ambitious and expensive affair.
Pros of Xamarin
a) Xamarin app development uses C# for coding, meaning that it works seamlessly on an array of platforms (including Android and iOS).
b) Xamarin has a strong community of over 60,000 contributors from more than 3,700 companies.
c) Share more than 75% of your code across platforms, for “write once, run anywhere” ease.
d) A single tech stack for faster development
Cons of Xamarin
a) It is expensive for enterprises. Xamarin is a framework that comes free for individuals and startups. However, enterprises are requisite to buy a license for Microsoft’s Visual Studio.
b) Xamarin is not recommended for apps that demand heavy graphics because each platform has a different method for visually laying out screens. A UX/UI-rich application is advised to be implemented natively.
c) It also offers limited access to definite crucial libraries that the app developers need for mobile app development. Also, since the core of its user-interface creation is not mobile, creating the UI is time-consuming.
2. React Native: Learn Once, Write Anywhere
React Native is an undertaking that Facebook launched in 2015, and it did inception a wave in the market for hybrid frameworks. Within a few years of its introduction in the market, it is already one of the most favourite ones and the most trending one amongst the 5 cross-platform app frameworks discussed in the blog.
Pros of React Native
a) Up to 80% of a codebase can be shared across platforms, depending on the app’s complexity.
b) Apart from code reusability, it allows you to advertising results right away, besides offering ready-to-apply elements, thus shortening the developing time substantially.
c) Hot Reloading feature enables developers to see changes made in code within seconds, not minutes when using native technologies.
d) React Native focuses on UI to an outstanding extent rendering a highly responsive interface.
e) It also gives you entree to definite important native functionalities like accelerometer and camera. The result it makes is a high-quality native-like user interface.
Cons of React Native
a) React Native is not to the full a cross-platform app framework. To use several functions like camera or accelerometer you have to use native components, so there will be a separate code for Android and iOS.
b) Since the framework is not built in conjunction with iOS or Android, it lags behind the native platforms at times. This is one of the reasons that led Udacity to stop investing in React Native for new features.
c) React Native lacks consistency when it comes to releasing the updates.
d) React Native amends the speed of development, but also increases the duration of the debugging process, particularly on Android.
Also, in the Stack Overflow ‘Developer Survey Results, 2019’, React Native was found in the category of dreaded frameworks for the first time.
3. Flutter: Beautiful Native Apps in No-Time
Flutter is another open source and free cross-platform framework for appointing native interfaces for Android as well as iOS.
Yes! I can interpret your minds here. You might be thinking if Google announced Flutter freshly in February 2018 at Mobile World Congress and released its first version on December 5th, 2018, what made me mention Flutter in this list of cross-platform app frameworks.
Remember, Flutter is a cross-platform app framework well-kept by Google, the precise same organization that develops the Android Native Framework. A survey held by Stack Overflow backs the other explanations that made me include Flutter in this list.
In the Developer Survey Results Flutter is amongst the top 3 most admired frameworks, and it added another complexity to the actual popularity of the Reactive Native framework..
Pros of Flutter
a) “Hot reloading” feature enables developers to perceive changes made in code within seconds not minutes as when using native technologies.
b) It is an abstract framework for MVP development. Instead of spending extra money and time on two detached apps, you can rapidly build a Flutter mobile application that looks native on both Android and iOS.
c) Flutter is based on Dart, an object-oriented programming language that developers have found rather effortless to grow the skill for.
d) Flutter has a full set of widgets in Google’s Material Design and in Apple’s style with the Cupertino pack.
e) Many ready-made solutions for native Android and iOS apps modify you to work with Continuous Integration platforms like Travis and Jenkins.
Cons of Flutter
a) There is limited TV support with apps built on Flutter framework, i.e., Flutter offers no support for Android TV and Apple TV.
b) Though by goodness of being developed by Google, there are respective libraries with ready-to-implement functionalities, Flutter still lacks when compared to native development.
c) Since Flutter-enabled apps use built-in widgets and not platform widgets, the app’s size is normally bigger. Currently, the petite achievable app made with Flutter can weigh no less than 4MB.
4. Adobe PhoneGap: Build Amazing Mobile Apps Powered by Open Web Tech
PhoneGap was early known as Apache Cordova. It is owned as well as sourced by Adobe. It is a simplex cross-platform app development framework that uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.
Pros of Adobe PhoneGap
a) It permits you to share the application with the team to garner their feedback.
b) It also offers a cloud solution in case you want to create your app straight.
c) Features like admittance to third-party tools, a large community (the one behind the free and open-source Apache Cordova), and a sizable number of plugins, make it improved than its competitors.
d) It uses an intuitive desktop as for mobile app development and then serves the app created on the desktop to mobile devices affiliated to it.
Cons of Adobe PhoneGap
a) PhoneGap is not recommended for high-performance applications and hardware qualifier apps like gaming apps due to its miserable performance and lack of UI Widgets.
b) PhoneGap is dependent on iOS SDKs to physique an app and downloading these SDKs requires a Mac.
c) Apps built with PhoneGap to attend to go a small low on execution as compared to native apps
5. Ionic: Make App Creation Lightning Fast
Ionic is an open-source cross-platform app framework and licensed subordinate MIT. It uses HTML5 for translation. Very related to AngularJS in design and structure. It also inherits a few design elements from iOS as well as Android. It permits you to build native-like hybrid apps for Android and iOS as well as progressive web apps.
Pros of Ionic
a) Ionic is based on a SAAS UI framework designed generally for mobile operating systems. It renders many UI components for developing robust applications.
b) The Ionic framework allows you to ship constant. From automated native builds to live updating and CI/CD, Ionic Appflow addresses the entire mobile DevOps lifecycle.
c) Ionic is backed by a vivacious community of more than 5M developers in over 200 countries.
Cons of Ionic
a) The knowledge of AngularJS becomes almost a essential if one wants to go beyond elementary apps.
b) Designing in-app navigation is analyzable because of its not-so-easy-to-use UI-router.
Conclusion
Cross-platform solutions are effectual; however, they did not increase adequate mileage since their birth due to fragmentation in mobility platforms. Now that the mobile app development world is mostly divided into two large platforms — Android & iOS — cross-platform mobile app development is anticipated to experience much more furtherance precise soon.
The question is, which out of the mentioned cross-platform app development frameworks should you choose? The straightforward answer: it depends but consulting a skilled and experienced cross-platform mobile app development company can assist make a well-informed conclusion.