Top Cross-Platform Application Development Frameworks To Use In 2024

Advantages Of Cross-Platform App Development

Following are the advantages of going with cross-platform development!

Enhanced Exposure To Target Customers

Mobile applications built using cross-platform frameworks can be launched over different platforms. As a result, you can develop a single app and target users on iOS, Android, and other platforms to enhance your company’s reach.

Convenient Development & Maintenance

App developers create single source code in cross-platform development methodology resulting in an easy and streamlined development and easy-to-maintain applications. Besides, updating processes becomes easy as they are synced to several platforms reducing time and effort.

Easy Integration With Cloud

When it comes to cross-platform development, developers coordinate the single source code with different plugins and extensions to enhance the scalability and functionality of the application. This enables cross-platform applications conveniently get integrated with the cloud.

Less Cost And Resources

Developing a single app that can run on multiple platforms can save a significant amount of money, as opposed to developing separate apps for each platform. The core concept of cross-platform app development is to reuse the code; hence, it follows an agile development methodology assisting you in managing quality, budget, and the development time of the project.

Faster development

Cross-platform development tools allow for faster development times by allowing developers to write code once and run it on multiple platforms.

Increased reach

By developing a cross-platform app, you can reach a wider audience as your app can be made available on multiple app stores.

Consistency across platforms

Cross-platform development ensures that the app looks and feels the same across all platforms, which is important for user experience and brand consistency.

Reusability of code

Cross-platform development allows developers to reuse a significant amount of code, which can save time and money.

#1: React Native

React Native to create a mobile application is a common phenomena. Nowadays, React Native for Web is grabbing a lot of attention. React Native is the framework developed by Facebook. It allows developers build cross platform applications which can run across both iOS and Android platforms. The framework is easy to use, an excellent fit for different platforms, and an ideal choice for developers across the globe. If you want to find some cost effective mobile application option, then React Native development is the choice for you.

#2: Xamarin

Xamarin is a cross-platform application development technology backed by Microsoft. This cross-platform app development framework isn’t that popular; however, Xamarin is a preferred choice of developers in the tech arena. It allows application development for platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows using C#, .NET, and HTML. It offers a native-like feel to the application by facilitating a link to native libraries, access to native-level functionality, and a customization facility.

#3: Ionic

The next one on our list is Ionic. It’s an open-source and cross-platform applications development framework that’s highly advantageous for creating applications. The framework ensures offering a high-end user experience that the users feel adorable. It’s a perfect amalgamation of native features and performance with HTML-5-based user interface creation. Ionic is an excellent choice for those on the lookout for extraordinary app development.

#4: Flutter

This one is the next in our list of cross-platform app development frameworks. It’s the framework you can use to build cross-platform mobile apps for iOS and Android with no need to write different codebases, albeit Flutter for web development is new normal nowadays. Furthermore, you can develop web applications for Windows and Linux with the same codebase.

Some of the pluses of using flutter are allowing you to use the same UI and logic for different platforms, equal native app performance, Fast app testing with the hot reload feature, and so on. So, if you are heading to Flutter development, make sure you have explored about Flutter and its rivals.

#5: Kotlin

Surprised to see Kotlin under the cross-platform development framework category? Kotlin has expanded its competencies for cross-platform development. Going beyond Android development, the framework allows developers to share data, codes, and business logic across platforms, for instance, Android, iOS, Linux, Web, macOS, and JVM.

Kotlin has an easy learning curve, renders high performance, and keeps developers free to customize the UI and UX design with no limitations.

#6: Sencha Touch

It’s another cross-platform development framework on our list. Sencha Touch is a well-known framework for developing UI for mobile applications using simple HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This cross-platform framework is based on MVC architecture and can perfectly replicate most of the native features.

Sencha Touch has emerged as one of the best frameworks for developing robust applications that perform well on different platforms hassle-free.

#7: Firebase

Now, Firebase is the next one. The framework is a BaaS (backend as a service) platform for cross-platform app development. The cross-platform application development framework provides developers with different services and tools to help them develop customized applications for their needs and revenue. The framework comes with powerful features to build, improve, and handle apps.

Firebase owns exceptionally appealing features such as authentication, push messages, analytics, file storage, databases, and so on.

#8: NativeScript

The next one is NativeScript. It’s a popular and widely used cross-platform framework for creating applications. It’s an open-source framework that helps you build native apps with JavaScript or any other language that transpile to JavaScript, like TypeSctips. Using JavaScript, Angular, or TypeScript, this framework offers direct access to all native platform APIs. Therefore, it provides a native-like experience on the web, iOS, and Android.

#9: Cordova

Now, we’ve Cordova on our list. It leverages state-of-the-art technologies, for example, CSS, JS, and HTML5, to create platform-agnostic applications that function on an integrated mobile web browser. With the framework, there’s no need to learn platform-specific programming languages and access native features through plugins. This results in reducing the time involved in application development, contributing to streamlined application development and time to market.

#10: Corona SDK

Now, we have Corona SDK on our list. It’s a cross-platform development framework to develop 2D games for desktop and mobile devices. The framework was built in 2009 by Corona Labs Inc. Corona SDK is well known for developing highly robust and scalable applications in a reduced time. With OpenGL hardware acceleration for graphics and animation, the framework is a high-performance development tool for developers worldwide.

#11: Unity

Last but not least. Unity is a cross-platform Mobile Applications Development framework used to develop cross-platform gaming applications. Thanks to its streamlined interface and workflow, the framework is one of the popular game engines for creating applications for iOS and Android platforms. However, Unity isn’t limited to developing gaming applications; you can also utilize it for the previsualization of film, animation, and architectural visualization.

Some of the features of Unity are best-in-class graphics to optimize the gaming experience, the capability to render 2D and 3D scenes in a cross-platform app, and many others.

#12: Node.js

Another framework in our list is Node.js. It’s an open-source, cross-platform app development framework that’s one of the most used (with a 42.65% share in cross-platform app development) frameworks in 2023. This is a js-based runtime framework that supports server-side application development and scalable networking application that is highly responsive and efficacious.

Final Thoughts!

The proliferated growth in the use of smartphones has streamlined the need for mobile app development— it’s one of the best ways to approach a wide range of customers. There are several platforms for which you can build a mobile app and deploy that, but creating separate applications for each platform might be an exasperating task; hence you should consider cross-platform app development.

With cross-platform development, you can create an application with competencies to run on various platforms like Android, iOS, etc. Considering the need of businesses, we have assessed some of the cross-platform development frameworks that’ll assist you when building platform-agnostic apps for your business. Explore this article again and hire the best mobile app developers for your projects.