Blogs » Top 10 Mobile App Development Frameworks
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With over five billion active devices worldwide, the mobile app market is more competitive than ever. To stand out from the rest, your app must be well-designed and built with a robust mobile app development framework. But with so many options to choose from, it can be difficult to know which one is right for your project.
To help you make the best decision for your business, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 mobile app development frameworks of 2022 (in no particular order). We’ll give you an overview of each option, including some key features and benefits. By the end of this article, you’ll know which framework is best suited for your needs. So let’s get started!
1. React Native
React Native is one of the most popular mobile app development frameworks available today. Facebook has been maintaining React Native since it was released in 2015. The main features of React Native include:
Platform and Language
It allows developers to build cross-platform Android and iOS apps using JavaScript.
Subscription
It is free.
Code
With React Native, you can create an open-source, platform-specific version of components so a single codebase can share code across multiple platforms. It also allows for a team to maintain two projects while using only one technology—React!
UI Components
React Native provides a way to create truly native apps that don’t compromise your users’ experience. It offers core platform-agnostic components like View, Text and Image which map directly to the platform’s native UI building blocks.
Unique Feature
React Native components wrap existing native code and interact with native APIs via React’s declarative UI paradigm and JavaScript. This enables native app development for whole new teams of developers and can let existing native teams work much faster.
2. Ionic
Ionic is another very popular framework for developing mobile apps. Some notable features that Ionic offers are:
Platform and Language
It’s based on the AngularJS framework and uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create cross-platform apps. Ionic is great for creating hybrid apps that can be run on both Android and iOS devices.
Subscription
It is free.
Code
It lets developers ship apps to the app stores, and as a PWA with a single, open source, code base.
UI Components
It offers pre-designed UI components that look great on all mobile devices and platforms. You can kickstart with pre-made components, typography, or a base theme that adapts to each mobile device!
Unique Feature
Ionic Command Line Interface (CLI) is a powerful tool that makes it easy to build, test and deploy your apps. You can make use of the Live Reload feature, integrations and deployments, or even a JS framework’s CLI of your own choice.
3. Xamarin
Xamarin is a mobile app development framework created by Microsoft. Some of the features of Xamarin include:
Platform and Language
Xamarin extends the .NET developer platform with tools and libraries specifically for building native apps on iOS, Android, tvOS watchos macOS & Windows, using C# and .NET.
Subscription
It is free.
Code
In addition to being open-source, Xamarin lets you use the same tools, language and code for developing apps that run on mobile devices as well as servers and clouds alike.
UI Components
Xamarin.Forms is an open-source mobile UI framework from Microsoft for building iOS, Android & Windows apps with .NET that can be shared across multiple platforms in just one codebase! Whether you want a consistent look throughout all your devices or prefer native app behavior on each individual operating system – this library has got everything needed to get started quickly and efficiently.
Unique Feature
Whether you need storage, a database, or intelligent services in your application, Microsoft Azure has what it takes to power your mobile app’s front-end.
4. Cordova
Cordova is Apache’s framework for developing mobile apps. Some of Cordova’s noteworthy features include:
Platform and Language
Cordova uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for developing apps. It allows developers to create cross-platform apps that can be run on Android, iOS, OS X (deprecated), Windows phone (deprecated), and Electron.
Subscription
It is free.
Code
It offers platform-centered shell tools and cross-platform Cordova CLI for building, emulating and deploying mobile apps. Cordova is open source as well and targets more than one platform with a single code base.
UI Components
The Cordova API offers a unique way to expand your app’s functionality. With many plugins available, you can easily add features such as barcode scanners, NFC communication, etc.
Unique Feature
With templates in Cordova, you can use pre-made code to jump start your project.
5. Appcelerator Titanium
Titanium is a mobile app development framework created by Appcelerator. Let’s take a look at some of the features it has to offer to mobile app developers:
Platform and Language
Titanium allows developers to create native apps for Android, iOS, and BlackBerry using JavaScript.
Subscription
The core component of Titanium is the Apache-licensed software development kit – Titanium SDK. Appcelerator also makes Alloy, an Apache-licensed, Titanium-based model–view–controller framework, and Appcelerator Studio a proprietary, integrated development environment starting for free.
Code
This open-source framework offers premium support integrations and an extensive selection of community modules, which are easy to include in your app.
UI Components
You can take full advantage of all the native UI and non-visual components within your application. Additionally, it gives developers access to hundreds of different networking APIs.
Unique Features
- You can develop native mobile applications that work on all major platforms.
- Axway licenses Titanium under the Apache 2 license and is free for both personal and commercial use.
6. Sencha Ext JS
Sencha Ext JS, formerly known as Sencha Touch, is a mobile app development framework. Here are some of the notable features of Sencha Ext JS for mobile app development:
Platform and Language
It is based on the JavaScript framework. It allows developers to create cross-platform apps using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.
Subscription
It has a proprietary license.
Code
With 140+ pre-built components, Sencha Ext JS is a robust framework for building applications. Additionally, Sencha offers some state-of-the-art tools for coding and testing, like Sencha Cmd, Inspector, ExtGen, Sencha Fiddle, etc.
UI Components
Developers can improve the design process by using pre-integrated tools like Sencha Architect, Stencils and Themer, etc.:
- Sencha Architect
You can create your Ext JS application with a simple to use drag-and-drop interface. Spend less time on manual coding and more focus on what really matters – creating an awesome user experience! - Sencha Stencils
Stencils is a complete UI asset kit for Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, and Balsamiq. You can also get it as an SVG or PNG that will work in any other program you need! - Sencha Themer
Design your application with a wide range of templates and graphical tools — without writing code.
Unique Features
The documentation for the framework is extensive and you can look into what exactly happens under the hood. It also has a “Kitchen Sink” full of working examples with source code that will help get your app up and running in no time!
7. Flutter
Flutter is a mobile app development framework created, trusted, and used by Google. Here are some of the core features that make it a compelling candidate for this list:
Language and Platform
It allows developers to create natively compiled, cross-platform apps using Dart language. Flutter is the only cross-platform development framework that offers access to both Android and iOS‘s native features and SDKs through widely used programming languages such as Kotlin and Swift.
Subscription
It is free.
Code
Flutter’s open-source code is super fast on any device, which means it can be compiled to either ARM or Intel machine code, as well as JavaScript.
UI Components
In addition to providing ways for apps to customize how they adapt to different platforms, the Flutter SDK also includes some automatic adaptations for small UI details.
Unique Feature
Hot reload in Flutter is a feature that allows you to experiment with your code without losing state. Hot reload works by injecting updated source files into the running Dart Virtual Machine, which helps developers quickly fix bugs or add new features to their app!
The two most popular cross-platform mobile app frameworks are Google Flutter and React Native. We wrote a separate article comparing Google Flutter and React Native to help you decide which one is best for your project: React Native vs Google Flutter: How to Pick the Mobile App Development Platform for Your Next Mobile App
8. Swift
Swift is an open-source mobile app development framework created by Apple. Swift is developed at Swift.org, with source code, a bug tracker, forums, and regular development builds available for everyone. Some of the prominent features Swift offers include:
Platform and Language
Swift allows developers to create native apps for iOS devices. It is a successor to both the C and Objective-C languages.
Subscription
It has a proprietary license up to Swift 2.2.
Code
In their own words, some Swift features make your code more expressive in the following ways:
- Generics that are powerful and simple to use
- Protocol extensions that make writing generic code even easier
- First-class functions and a lightweight closure syntax
- Fast and concise iteration over a range or collection
- Tuples and multiple return values
- Structs that support methods, extensions, and protocols
- Enums can have payloads and support pattern matching
- Functional programming patterns, e.g., map and filter
- Variables are always initialized before use
- Arrays and integers are checked for overflow
- Default Swift objects can never be nil.
- Native error handling using try / catch / throw
UI Components
The SwiftUI framework makes it easy to create the user interface for your app. You can use views, controls and layout structures with this tool! SwiftUI makes it easy to take advantage of platform-specific functionality, such as taking full advantage of Apple’s UIKit, AppKit or WatchKit frameworks. You can also customize accessibility support in SwiftUI and localize your app’s interface for different languages/countries – all without sacrificing aesthetics!
Unique Feature
Memory is automatically managed, and enforcement of exclusive access to memory guards against many programming mistakes.
9. Kotlin
Kotlin is a relatively new mobile app development framework created by JetBrains. Kotlin offers the following features for native Android app development:
Platform and Language
It allows developers to create native apps for Android devices. It’s specially created so that it can work with both Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and JavaScript.
Subscription
It is free!
Code
- You can focus on expressing your ideas more clearly while writing less boilerplate code.
- 100% interoperability with the Java programming language, so there’s no need for two separate code bases!
- It helps you avoid NullPointerExceptions. Hence, Android apps developed with Kotlin are 20% less likely to crash.
UI Components
Android for Kotlin provides a variety of pre-built UI components such as structured layout objects and controls that allow you to build the graphical user interface for your app. The different types include dialogs, notifications, menus, among others.
Unique Feature
Kotlin coroutines streamline asynchronous programming, making common tasks like network calls and database updates simple and performant.
10. Mobile Angular UI
Mobile Angular UI, or MAUI as we like calling it (pronounced as mau-ee), is one of the trendiest mobile UI frameworks out there. Some core features of MAUI include:
Platform and Language
MAUI allows developers to create cross-platform HTML5 mobile apps with Twitter Bootstrap and Angular JS.
Subscription
It is free.
Code
MAUI is open source and creates hybrid mobile apps. MAUI offers a rich user experience with fast responsiveness and code maintainability.
UI Components
As MAUI is a close relative of Twitter Bootstrap, it grabs original bootstrap’s sources and manipulates them to achieve mobile-friendly look & feel, while adding some extra features of its own (that we have discussed in the next paragraph below!).
Unique Feature
MAUI’s new features include Sidebars, Navbars with Absolute positioning, Overlays, Switches, and Scrollable Areas. It also makes use of bootstrap.css so you, the developer, can enjoy all its benefits by incorporating cool UI mobile components!
That’s a Wrap!
Now that you have a better understanding of the top 10 mobile app development frameworks of 2022, it’s time to decide which one is best for your business. Each framework has its own unique set of features and benefits, so be sure to choose one that will meet the needs of your users and your company. If you’re still unsure which framework is right for you, our team can help you make the decision. We’ll work with you to find the framework that fits your budget and timeline while also delivering a high-quality product that meets the needs of your users. What’s your preferred mobile app development framework? Let us know in the comments!
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