The growing popularity of cross-platform mobile development technology has necessitated the need for new applications. An efficient cross-platform allows developers to build similar applications on numerous mobile platforms.
With multiple options to choose from, it is challenging for developers to select a framework that best suits the needs of businesses.
List of a few prime cross-platform frameworks developers can choose
Flutter
Google’s Flutter is a framework that uses Dart programming language for building applications from a unified codebase. It has a “hot reload” feature that allows developers to see how the application changes once the code is modified without recompilation. It supports Google’s material design system that helps build powerful digital experiences by using numerous visual and behavioral widgets for the applications. Interestingly, Flutter does not rely on browser technology. Instead, it utilizes its rendering engine for drawing widgets. It is an ideal framework for MVP development, making the Flutter mobile application look native.
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However, there is minimal TV support with applications built on the Flutter framework, which means it does not provide adequate support for Android TV and Apple TV. Although Flutter consists of multiple ready-to-implement functionalities, it still lacks compared to native development. Furthermore, Flutter-embedded applications use built-in widgets rather than platform widgets which maximizes the application’s size. Presently, the minor applications made with Flutter weigh no less than 4MB.
React Native
Developed by Meta Platforms, React Native is an open-source UI software framework that was based on Facebook’s JavaScript library React. It allows the developer to build cross-platform mobile applications which are natively rendered. The “Fast refresh feature” will enable developers to spot React components’ changes rapidly. React primitives adhere to native platform UI components to develop customized and responsive UI. Integration of React native and the mobile application debugger, Flipper, is set by default in versions 0.62 and higher. Since React Native was developed much earlier, it has a vast and robust community of developers with technical knowledge.
Additionally, depending on the application’s complexity, up to 80% of a codebase can be shared across platforms making the code reusability significantly speed the development process. Simultaneously, React Native allows result preview and offers ready-to-apply elements, minimizing the developing time. It also provides developers access to useful native functionalities like an accelerometer and camera, rendering a high-quality, native-like user interface.
On the contrary, React Native is not entirely a cross-platform app framework as it necessitates the use of native components to use some functions as a camera or accelerometer. It lags behind the native platforms, as the framework is not built in combination with iOS or Android. There are inconsistencies while releasing updates, which increases the debugging process’s duration.
Xamarin
Acquired by Microsoft in 2016, Xamarin is an open-source framework that was developed to resolve the issues of disjointed, native technology stacks, which made mobile app development challenging and costly. It uses C# programming language, making it work seamlessly on multiple platforms like Android and iOS. Additionally, it encompasses a single tech stack for faster development and enables sharing of three fourth of the code across platforms for “write once, run anywhere” ease. Interestingly, it has a strong community of 60,000 contributors from more than 3,700 companies.
However, Xamarin is expensive for enterprises requiring a license for Microsoft’s Visual Studio, while it retails free for individuals and start-ups. A UX/UI-rich application should be implemented natively because Xamarin cannot work with heavy graphic applications due to different methods for visually laying out screens. Unfortunately, it offers minimal access to specific important libraries that the developers require for mobile application development. Building the UI is time-consuming, as the core of its UI creation is not mobile. Also, since the core of its user interface creation is not mobile, creating the UI is time-consuming.
Ionic
Ionic is an open-source framework that is scalable and easy to read and maintain. It offers a library of HTML, CSS, and JS components optimized for mobile development, helping developers to build interactive applications. Ionic encompasses features and tools, like out-of-the-box support for material design, native-style mobile UI elements, and layouts. At the same time, it also provides the customers with regular updates and adequate resources from the development community. Ionic-based applications consist of native functionalities, specific gestures, and customizable tools that help in improving user-friendliness. However, they depend on wrappers to run as native.
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Furthermore, native plugins are unstable and cannot compete with each other, but they need to be integrated by default to solve the lack of features. Due to unclear error messages, debugging an application built on Ionic can be difficult and time-consuming, resulting in builds crashing randomly.
Node.js
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime framework created on the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine. It utilizes an open-source environment that supports the building of server-side and scalable networking applications. These platforms are highly efficient and responsive as they can handle multiple concurrent connections.
It offers a library of numerous JavaScript modules that help simplify the development of web applications.Node.js APIs are asynchronous and non-blocking in nature and does not wait for data from APIs immediately move to another API after calling. A notification system for Node.js allows the server to procure a response from the previous API call.
At the same time, the Node.js library is fast in its code execution; its applications do not buffer. It efficiently delivers a seamless functioning of the applications using the single-threaded model with event looping functionality.
However, its performance is minimized with heavy computational tasks and lacks library support. It has a vast number of callbacks with an unstable API. Also, the demand for Node.js is high, and there are only a few experienced developers with a small community.
Cross-platform apps diminish the effort to develop different apps for different platforms. Hence, an efficient cross-platform framework is crucial to create a compatible app. Developers must carefully assess a wide array of cross-platform application frameworks available in the market. They need to ensure that these frameworks deliver seamless functioning and are capable of running efficiently on all platforms as native apps. At the same time, developers can choose a cross-platform app development company with good technology stack needed for effective app development.