Top 10 Best Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks

Cross-platform development involves creating applications that can run seamlessly across different operating systems without the need for customization on each platform. Frameworks that enable this approach are called cross-platform frameworks.

The core value proposition is massive code reuse. Instead of maintaining distinct codebases for iOS, Android, and other platforms, you can build a single codebase that runs everywhere. This dramatically improves efficiency by eliminating duplicative efforts.

Additionally, cross-platform frameworks help maximize reach. By targeting multiple operating systems from one codebase, you expand your potential user base. Users on any device can enjoy a consistent experience from your app.

The feasibility and popularity of cross-platform development has grown steadily. A few key factors have driven increased adoption in recent years:

• Maturation of frameworks like React Native, making the paradigm far more viable
• Desire to minimize costs through maximizing shared code
• Accelerated release cadences emphasizing quicker time-to-market
• Appeal of streamlining maintenance through a unified codebase
• Optimization of limited development resources

Today’s tech landscape and faster release cycles incentivize solutions like cross-platform development that boost output and streamline processes. Let’s explore how the top frameworks help achieve this.

Here are the 10 most prominent options for cross-platform mobile app development, broken down by their key differentiators:

React Native

React Native by Facebook is an extremely popular cross-platform framework that allows building native mobile apps using React. It uses the same fundamental UI building blocks – such as layout primitives and components – on both mobile platforms. By reusing React code, you can write cross-platform mobile applications for iOS and Android quickly.

Key Features:

• Uses JavaScript to build apps for iOS and Android
• Leverages the same skills as web development
• High performance with its own declarative UI framework
• Large community and ecosystem

How it Works React Native works by executing JavaScript code natively on both iOS and Android platforms. It uses the same fundamental UI building blocks like layouts and components and shares common code across platforms. React Native renders its components using platform-specific renderers to achieve native platform look and feel on each device.

React Native apps are built using React components and JSX syntax. Your JSX code is then rendered into native platform Views using React’s declarative UI paradigm and reconciliation process. React Native also supports hot reloading, which allows you to instantly see your code changes in the app without recompiling or refreshing it.

Benefits: It has a massive community and libraries. Being JavaScript based, web developers easily pick it up. Hot reloading during development improves productivity.

Popular Apps: Facebook, Instagram, Uber Eats, Walmart, SoundCloud, Skype etc. Major companies use it to build scalable cross-platform solutions.

Flutter

Flutter is Google’s official cross-platform framework for building mobile apps. It uses Dart as the primary programming language. You develop using Flutter’s built-in Material Design widgets and Flutter compiles your code to native ARM machine code. This allows Flutter apps to be incredibly fast while maintaining a native experience. Flutter follows a widget-based approach to build straightforward yet flexible user interfaces.

Key Features:

• Uses Dart programming language
• Renders incredibly fast using its own rendering engine
• Write once, deploy everywhere – iOS, Android, Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.
• Hot reload helps fast development cycles

How it Works: Flutter works by using its rendering engine to compile your Dart code into native ARM instructions which are then run on iOS or Android. This means that Flutter code runs at native speeds without any JavaScript bridges or interpreters that hold it back. You build your UI using Flutter’s built-in Material and Cupertino widgets which are designed to look and behave just like native widgets on each platform. This provides a seamless experience for users.

Benefits:

• Visual consistency across platforms.
• Code sharing is close to 100%.
• Extensive documentation and large community.
• Pre-built, customizable widgets improve productivity.

Popular Apps: Alibaba, Google Ads, Etsy, Google Pay. Flutter’s capabilities attract enterprises and startups.

Xamarin

Xamarin offers pre-built native mobile and desktop controls along with platform-specific customization support. It allows the sharing of native UI, business logic, data access, and platform services across devices using a single codebase.

Key Features:

• Uses C# and .NET for cross-platform development
• Share common code and build native UIs using platform-specific controls
• Leverage existing .NET skills for mobile app development
• Supports a direct inclusion of Objective-C, Java and C++ libraries
• Reduces the time and cost of mobile app development

How it Works: Xamarin allows building UIs declaratively that render natively on each device. It also supports platform-specific projects for native capabilities. Code sharing between iOS, Android and UWP is close to 100%.

Benefits:

• Leverage existing C# skills.
• Develop once and deliver native UIs for iOS, Android, and UWP.
• Visual Studio IDE improves developer productivity.

Popular Apps: Alaska Airlines, Insightly, FreshDirect, Microsoft reel and MRW. Popular among C# developers and large corporations.

Ionic Framework

Ionic is a true hybrid framework that allows packaging HTML, CSS, and Angular JS code into platform-specific wrappers, making the code look and behave like a native app across iOS and Android without having to recompile for each platform.

Key Features:

• Uses web technologies like HTML, CSS and AngularJS
• Native app like user experience using its components
• Plugins provide access to native device features

How it Works: Ionic apps are web apps wrapped by a native shell using technologies like Cordova. The UI is built with web standards then dynamically converted to platform-specific UI at runtime. With Ionic, apps are built using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. At runtime, Ionic apps are wrapped by a native shell using Cordova/Phonegap which hosts the code in a native WebView control.

Popular UI elements available in Ionic are things like action sheets, alerts, buttons, cards, checkboxes, inputs, lists, loads, menus, modals etc. Ionic API and directive help build UI consistently across platforms.

Benefits:

• Fast development cycles using web skills.
• Large selection of UI elements for a consistent feel.
• Huge ecosystem and community support.

Popular Apps: MarketWatch, Sanvello, Calla, and Justwatch. Widely used for prototypes and lightweight MVPs.

Nord.Js

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, backend JavaScript runtime environment that runs on the V8 engine and allows JavaScript code to be run server-side. Node.js is an excellent choice for building fast and scalable server-side web applications and APIs.

Key Features:

• Event-driven architecture that makes it lightweight and efficient
• Large ecosystem of external packages/modules that can be installed to add functionalities
• Uses JavaScript on both frontend and backend for full-stack development
• Very fast due to its implementation of Google’s V8 JavaScript engine

How it Works: Node.js works on the principle of a non-blocking event-driven I/O model. Instead of wasting resources by waiting for a process to finish, node frees up the resources so they can be used for other jobs. This allows Node.js to handle thousands of concurrent connections with a single process.

When an I/O operation like reading from a database or API call occurs, instead of waiting, Node will instantly move on to the next thing. Once the first thing finishes, the Node will trigger the next operations.

Benefits:

• Highly scalable due to its asynchronous and non-blocking nature
• Fast development cycles using just one language (JavaScript)
• Large ecosystem of external packages that can be easily installed to add functionalities
• Allows real-time web applications to be built easily
• Lightweight, which makes it suitable for data-intensive applications

Popular Apps: PayPal, Uber, Netflix, LinkedIn, eBay and NASA.

Kotlin Multiplatform

Kotlin Multiplatform is a programming model that lets you share code across platforms like Android, iOS, Web and Desktop using the Kotlin language. It introduces the concept of “common” code that can be reused and platform-specific code that deals with native capabilities.

Key Features:

• Kotlin programming language works for Android, iOS, WebAssembly, Node.js
• Share common code across platforms with no runtime dependency
• Full backwards compatibility with Android code

How it Works: Kotlin Multiplatform model divides code into common, which is platform-independent, and platform-specific parts that interface with each OS or technology. The common code contains business logic, models, utilities etc and platform code deals with native UI, APIs etc.

It determines which parts can be shared by analyzing the dependencies of Kotlin code. If a dependency doesn’t relate to a specific platform, that code becomes common. Additionally, Kotlin offers platform-dependent and -independent abstractions like expect/actual declarations to mark parts targeting particular platforms.

Kotlin compiler then handles building platform-specific binaries for iOS, Android, JavaScript etc. preserving the common code structure. This lets leverage existing Kotlin skills and codebase while allowing specific platforms to integrate native capabilities as needed.

Benefits:

• Leverage existing Android skills to other platforms.
• Reduce development efforts significantly by sharing majority of code.
• Strong typing and null safety improves quality.

Popular Usage: Quizlet, Netflix, Trello and Pinterest. Great for large existing Kotlin/Android codebases targeting new platforms.

Unity

Unity is a cross-platform game engine widely used for developing 2D and 3D games as well as other interactive content like VR and AR applications. It provides a complete set of features to develop games out of the box.

Key Features:

• Uses C# for building 2D and 3D cross-platform games and AR/VR apps
• Visual editor and pre-built components for faster development
• Export built games to 25+ platforms

How it Works: Generally Unity scripting is done in C# mostly while designing levels visually in Unity Editor. Common pipelines include importing assets, placing/configuring game objects, scripting behaviors. Visual scripting is also possible.

Post development, games can be published to platforms like Windows desktop, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, WebGL, consoles etc. with one click export. Unity cloud builds automate and simplify the process.

Multiple pricing plans exist, free for smaller titles and paid pro versions for bigger studios. Asset store provides huge collection of affordable high quality plugins/assets. Unity Certifications help developers advance their ca

Benefits:

• Huge asset store of free and paid plugins and tutorials.
• Leverage a single codebase for all target platforms.
• Integrated multiplatform capabilities improve productivity.

Popular Apps: Pokemon GO, Cuphead, Cities: Skylines, Beat Saber. Widely used by game developers for its scalability.

AppGameKit

AppGameKit provides an all-in-one cross-platform solution for building cutting-edge games. It offers a powerful 3D engine with advanced features like PBR graphics, multi-level entity inheritance, and a fully-featured particle system; allowing games to be incredibly polished.

Key Features:

• Cocos2d-x based framework for 2D cross-platform games
• C++ integrated development environment
• Build games for mobile, desktop and web from a single C++ codebase

How it Works: AppGameKit uses inheritance to structure your game entities and components logically. This follows a data-oriented design and makes your entities and logic highly reusable across platforms. AGK also includes a visual scene editor so you can rapidly prototype and test your game ideas without code.

AppGameKit games can be built for web, desktop and all major mobile platforms from a single codebase using C++ or TypeScript. It utilizes platform-specific APIs to ensure best performance and integrates thoroughly with each ecosystem.

Benefits:

• Powerful C++ capabilities for complex games.
• Leverage low-level native code across platforms.
• Great for existing C++ game projects to multiply platforms.

Popular Games: Fighting Game Example, Rolling Ball Adventure. Used by indie developers for cross-platform 2D games.

PhoneGap

PhoneGap is an open-source framework that allows the creation of cross-platform mobile apps using common web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It packages these apps as native applications.

Key Features:

• Uses HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript for cross-platform app development
• Wraps apps as native applications using plugins
• Access native device capabilities

How it Works: With PhoneGap, you get to leverage existing web development skills for mobile. The core app logic is written using web standards which is then wrapped by a native shell to deliver a native app experience.

This abstracts away the platform differences by providing a common interface to access device capabilities like camera, contacts, storage etc. using JavaScript APIs. Popular areas where PhoneGap excels include simple apps and prototypes.

PhoneGap provides plugins that allows accessing a wide range of device functionalities like accelorometer, contacts, file system etc. without using any native code. This hybrid approach brings web content into native packaging.

Benefits:

• Leverage web development skills for mobile.
• Consistent experience across platforms.
• Large ecosystem and community support.

Popular Apps: AnyDo, Songza, PayPal Mobile. Ideal choice for simple apps to reach multiple app stores.

NativeScript

NativeScript is an open-source framework that allows cross-platform native mobile development using JavaScript or TypeScript. It uses the same code for both iOS and Android apps that renders natively on each device.

Key Features:

• Uses JavaScript/TypeScript for developing truly native UIs
• Leverage web development skills for native mobile development
• NativeScript runtime compiles code into local, native UI views

How it Works:

NativeScript works by compiling JavaScript/TypeScript code into native ARM instructions for both iOS and Android platforms. This means NativeScript apps run at native speeds and have access to full native mobile APIs without any abstraction layers.

NativeScript app is built using common web technologies like JavaScript, CSS, and optionally, TypeScript/Angular. The NativeScript compiler then converts this code into platform-specific executable and linking formats like Objective-C for iOS or Java bytecode for Android.

Additionally, NativeScript provides native API bindings that let you directly call into APIs for each platform like Contacts, Camera, Geolocation etc. from JavaScript code. NativeScript also supports features like hot module replacement for a quicker dev-test cycle.

Benefits:

• Write once, deploy anywhere approach.
• Hot reload helps faster iterations.
• Strong community and good documentation.
• Completely native user experience and performance.

Popular Apps: FreshBooks, Tracker, Soul Machines. Great for complex native apps with shorter development cycles.

Conclusion

These cross-platform frameworks allow building high quality apps that reach all major operating systems. Choosing the right one depends on factors like programming experience, app complexity, target platforms and development speed requirements. They greatly help businesses optimize resources while catering to customer needs on all devices.

These cross-platform frameworks allow building high quality apps that reach all major operating systems. Choosing the right one depends on factors like programming experience, app complexity, target platforms and development speed requirements. They greatly help businesses optimize resources while catering to customer needs on all devices.