Best Mobile App Development Framework – Mobile App Development Frameworks are the development tools gaining prominence across the globe for their ability to create apps simply, saving time and money for the business. The growing demand for mobile apps owing to the large audience base on mobile devices and the companies shifting from a traditional approach to a modern one is the reason for its exponential popularity.
Presently the mobile app development market is growing at a CAGR 14% annual rate and is expected to reach a revenue of around $100 billion by 2022. This figure clearly states the market’s increasing demand for mobile apps. To meet these demands, pioneering tools are needed to produce mobile apps in the shortest time possible and remain within the budget. This blog discusses the top mobile app development frameworks garnering a lot of attention in 2024 and the other aspects of app development. But before that, let’s understand the app development framework.
What are Mobile App Development Frameworks?
Almost every business today has realized the pivotal role that mobile apps play in growing the customer base. And the development of mobile apps has been on a large scale in recent times. Businesses do not require any knowledge of complex computer languages to develop an app, as there are mobile app development frameworks for Android and iOS. A solid grasp of web-based programming languages like CSS, HTML, or JavaScript is needed.
Essentially, a mobile app framework is a software creation platform including tools & software, debugging tools, compilers, programming interfaces, and much more. Hence, Android or iOS app developers develop the app’s source code and framework, and it uses several elements to generate the apps for different mobile devices.
What are the Top Mobile App Development Frameworks in 2024?
Let’s explore the top mobile app development frameworks that can help create mobile apps efficiently and conveniently.
Flutter – Leading mobile app development framework
This is an excellent mobile app development framework when the goal is to develop a successful app. Produced by Google, Flutter is a UI toolkit generating native apps for desktop, web, and mobile platforms. It works on one code base to create iOS apps and Android apps via a cross-based mobile app development framework. Flutter offers wide-ranging customizable widgets helpful for developing native apps in a short span. Besides, Flutter also uses a 2D rendering engine called Skia to build visuals. Also, its layered architecture ensures the practical functionality of components.
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Its features list includes:
- It is a cross-platform app development framework.
- Allows fast application development
- It offers appealing & interactive visuals
- It offers full-native performance
- Its flexible user interface (UI) can be beneficial
- Developers admire its build-in Material Design
- It has robust widget support
Use Case:
- This framework provides built-in material design & promotes faster app development.
- It allows the developers to view real-time app performance & easily handle every function.
- It helps reduce code development times and offers a native-like user experience.
- It is an excellent framework for creating apps for multiple screens or building apps without the use of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) widgets or lots of coding.
- It also comes helpful for creating customized & adaptive designs for mobile apps.
Top Brands: KlasterMe, Hamilton, Pairing, Xianyu by Alibaba, Cryptograph.
React Native – Top mobile app development framework
Created by Facebook, React Native is an open-source, cross-platform app development framework. In a short time, it has become one of the most preferred JavaScript-based (JS) mobile app development frameworks among developers. The main reason behind the popularity of this framework is its swift development and deployment processes.
Its features list includes:
- It offers the best deployment features
- It is a cost-effective framework
- It’s easily maintained
- It allows code reusability
- It supports Android & iOS
- It is Low-code
- It is compatible with the third-party plugins
- It offers reusable components for optimal performance
- It provides declarative API to predictive UI
Use Cases:
- This framework works excellently as it saves time, mobile app development cost, and effort as developers don’t need to build the same apps for many platforms.
- The apps created on the React Native framework are easy to maintain and allow the handling of the code base seamlessly.
- You don’t need to learn complex languages, such as Objective-C & Java, as React Native uses JavaScript Syntax Extension (JSX) instead.
- It helps develop cross-platform apps that look & feel entirely native.
- It helps to transform your web pages into intuitive mobile apps.
- It allows us to build the apps faster and within budget.
Top Brands: Its list of top brands consists of Instagram, Tesla, Airbnb, Amazon Prime Videos, and Skype.
Swiftic
Available on the iOS platform, Swiftic is a popular mobile app development framework with an easily navigable interface and a convenient option; after all, it offers one monthly money-back guarantee option for all its plans. Besides, it provides the following 6-month success guarantee scheme. If it can’t give you the expected result, it won’t charge any money for the six months of service.
Its features list includes:
- Offers in-app coupons
- Its advanced analytics are amazing
- It allows third-party integration
- Convert into a loyal shopper with a loyalty card
- Appealing alerts & push notifications
- Use the scratch cards to win prizes
- Offers Easy Communication
- App Publication Assistance
- Allows developing own mobile stores
- App Promotions
- Social & Media Feeds
- Menu & Ordering
- Customer Engagement
Use Case:
- This framework offers premium tools & features to reach the target audience and helps customize every aspect of the app’s appearance.
- It has a seamless communication approach and allows social media integration.
- If you are looking for a way to avoid developing from scratch and create apps quickly & efficiently, go with React Native.
Top Brands: The list of top brands includes Spa Café, The Clubhouse, Mt. Royal Bagel Co, The Gentlemen’s Barber, Remix Coffee Co
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Kotlin – Most Popular App Development Framework
This SDK helps in developing cross-platform mobile apps in a hassle-free manner. This multi-platform technology is based on a single code base that allows the creation of high-end apps ready to work on both iOS and Android platforms. This way, you are only required to write platform-specific code, particularly for use cases like implementing a native UI.
Its features list includes:
- Native/Kotlin debugger type evaluation
- iOS device launching with Xcode 13
- Cocoapods integration
- KMM Plugin for Android Studio
Use Case:
- It has a strong & stable developer community and supports other platforms like Linux, WebAssembly, JavaScript, etc.
- It allows you to share code used in your project among all the platforms (JVM, JS, etc.) and leverage all the native capabilities.
- It is helpful to design a connected app where logic can be reused on both server & client-side.
- This framework helps to ensure that your app is free from different security risks & vulnerabilities.
Top Brands: Space by Jetbrains, PlanGrid, VMware
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Xamarin – Excellent App Development Platform By Microsoft
This dotnet-based mobile app development framework is a native platform offered by Microsoft. This open-source and cross-platform app development framework provides a development ecosystem with a backend, components, API, etc. It has the support of tools, libraries, and programming languages. With the help of an active community of Android, iOS, tvOS, macOS, Windows, and WatchOS, Xamarin developers can develop great native apps.
Its features list includes:
- Offers Android SDK manager
- Offers Diagnostic Tools
- Storyboard files
- Application loader
- It offers a strong community of around 60,000 contributors
- Offers versatile backend infrastructure
- Offers Google emulator manager
Use Case:
- It develops highly responsive apps that are easy to market, and developers use it for apps with interactions requiring native behavior.
- It allows code reusability and helps write cross-platform mobile apps in the C# via Visual Studio.
- It offers solid & active community support, and experts use it for projects with code sharing, custom UI, and business logic as their topmost priority.
Top Brands: Its list of top brands include: FreshDirect, Story, APX, Evolve, MRW Courier
Ionic
This mobile app framework is quite popular all across the globe, and it is counted as one of the app developers’ favorites. This free app development platform utilizes CSS, JavaScript, and HTML technologies to create a hybrid, native, and web apps. At the same time, it’s an ideal choice to develop hybrid apps & progressive web apps that require HTML technology. Also, Hybrid apps come with almost every feature of both web and native apps in one app, including performance boosts, support for each device, and uniform designs. Apps created on Ionic can be easily shared across different app stores and installed on all devices using Capacitor or Cordova.
Its features list includes:
- Rapid Development time
- Solid & stable development platform
- User adaptability
- Intuitive UI components
- Community of 5 million developers
- Uniform User Interface
- Allows cross-platform app development
- Total control over the app development
Use Case:
- This platform-independent framework doesn’t need any change of code and provides several customizable themes & components for creating simple and robust designs.
- It makes mobile app testing a lot easier compared to its competitors.
- It is used to create dynamic & hybrid progressive web apps (PWAs) and cross-platform apps.
- It is a much-preferred platform for developers with experience in several JavaScript & Angular libraries.
- It helps build mobile apps without hiring native developers.
Top Brands: Its list of top brands consists of TD Trading, Honeyfi, Diesel, Sworkit, MarketWatch
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Native Script
Native Script is an open-source framework that allows the creation of native mobile apps empowered with CSS, Angular, TypeScript, JavaScript, and Vue.js. Among the most preferred frameworks, Native Script reduces the time and code of the app. Several top firms use the Native Script framework wing for its robust web empowerment platform.
Its features list includes:
- Best for cross-platform app
- Allows Native user interface with no WebViews
- It’s a mission-critical business support
- Easily adaptable
- Strong backend support
- Plugins and templates
- Total direct access to iOS & Android APIs
Use Case:
- It is a recommended framework for cross-platform apps and offers comprehensive backend assistance.
- This platform is useful when developers want to reuse existing tools & code for developing quick prototype apps.
- This platform is easy to learn and adapt and provides accessibility to Native APIs.
Top Brands: Its list of top brands consist of Switch, Regelneef, Daily Nanny, BitPoints Wallet, Strudel
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Apache Cordova
Earlier marketed as PhoneGap, Apache Cordova is a renowned developer-friendly app development framework. This cross-platform app development framework builds mobile apps using HTML5, CSS3, & JavaScript. The Cordova plugins enable programmers to utilize smartphone hardware features like cameras, GPS, and accelerometers to offer a native-like interface. The framework’s popular features and functionalities allow a quicker production approach with a single code and third-party app administration tool.
Its feature list includes:
- App management methods from third parties.
- Streamline the development procedure.
- A Single source of code
Use Case:
- Generating a faster software development process with a single codebase is helpful.
- It offers the required flexibility to create apps compatible with different platforms without learning new programming languages.
- The framework’s pre-defined plugins offer access to the device’s hardware components, like camera, GPS, accelerometer, file system, etc.
- It is helpful to deploy web apps on multiple app stores
- It can combine native app components with WebView and access device-level APIs.
- It can help when you need to do quick prototyping.
Top Brands: SparkChess, Loaleur, Untappd
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JQuery Mobile
Based on HTML5, JQuery is a user interface system that is touch-optimized and is used for developing highly responsive apps for smartphones, desktops, and tablets. JQuery mobile holds ThemeRoller that provides highly customizable themes; besides that, this mobile app development framework enables you to create highly branded websites. JQuery covers Windows, Mac OS, Firefox, Kindle, and Blackberry with extensive OS support.
Its features list includes:
- Offers Simple API
- Powerful theming framework
- Automatic initialization
- Configured with HTML5
- Lightweight size
- Built on JQuery Core
- Extensive & straightforward API support
- Compatible with other app development frameworks, like PhoneGap
Use Case:
- It allows for building exhaustive web pages.
- This framework becomes useful when developers need to create apps with UI enhancements that are accessible to all.
- This is a much-preferred framework to develop different types of list views, form elements, toolbars, buttons, etc.
- Apps that are developed with JQuery Mobile support easy SEO optimization.
- It is compatible with other frameworks like Apache Cordova, is lightweight, and has good, straightforward API support.
- It is beneficial for building exhaustive web pages. Also, this framework is highly recommended for developing different list views, form elements, buttons, toolbars, etc.
- It is also helpful in creating apps with UI enhancements accessible to everyone.
Top Brands: Its top brand list consists of Esprima, Appium, HospitalRun, Dojo, Globalize
Framework7
This open-source development framework helps to create web, mobile, and desktop apps with a native perspective. It allows the developers to use preferred tools with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML and offers Vue.js and React components for app development. Framework 7 also offers wide-ranging widgets and UI elements, such as action sheets, views, side panels, form elements, etc., to make the development process convenient and efficient.
Its features list includes:
- Rich Ecosystem
- A rich ecosystem with plugins, templates, and icons
- Paired with additional tools such as NW.js & Electron
- Several UI widgets & elements
- Great prototyping tool
- Easy Customization & Maintenance
Use Case:
- Framework 7 helps build web and mobile apps for Android and iOS devices.
- It is useful when developers want a prototyping tool to monitor the working app prototype readily.
- This framework is practical when you seek a faster loading time.
Top Brands: Its lists of top brands consist of My Shopper, EasyQuick Shop, GoDial, ZIGGU SIMBA, and PricePoint
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Sencha Ext JS
Integrated with EXT JS, this framework’s name was later changed to Sencha EXT JS. This JS framework allows the development of data-intensive web and mobile apps. It’s a cross-platform mobile development framework, and it comes with more than 115 high-performing & pre-integrated UI components. Its components include an HTML5 calendar, pivot grid, grids, trees, lists, menus, forms, D3 adapter, windows, panels, and toolbars. Etc. Also, Sencha holds a plethora of user extensions.
Its features list includes:
- Robust Analytics
- Visual data representation
- It offers a flexible layout system
- Offers 100+ user extensions
- It offers the best visual component support
- It’s created to perform with a large amount of data
- State-of-the-art Data-Driven Documents package (D3)
Use Case:
- This framework helps create data-intensive apps for web & mobile.
- It has more than 115 pre-integrated & high-performing UI elements. A few of its elements & components are pivot grid, HTML calendar, trees, grids, toolbars, D3 adapter, windows, panels, toolbars, & more. Sencha offers a plethora of useful extensions and delivers some themes to style elements.
- To change a theme, you require to alter the CSS & Script of the theme. When you use Sencha CMD, you might need a rebuilt app. Ext JS comes in two types classic toolkit and modern. They do not just vary in the available themes; there are few API distinctions between them.
Top Brands: Its list of top brands consists of NVIDIA, Cisco, Microsoft, Adobe, Apple
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Adobe PhoneGap
Adobe PhoneGap framework is sponsored together by Apache and Adobe and is used worldwide for Android application development. It’s counted among the best mobile development frameworks and uses JavaScript, HTML, and CSS3 for cross-platform development. This is an open-source desktop app where the apps can be linked to mobile devices. Besides, Adobe PhoneGap is a highly developer-friendly mobile app development framework. When the app is developed locally, it can be instantly checked for its looks and performance using the PhoneGap developer app. With Adobe PhoneGap, the developers do not require to re-sign or reinstall the app to the test code. Also, it allows access to devise APIs that might not be available in web browsers. Moreover, the developers might even use several Cordova plugins for device capabilities, like a camera, GPS, sound, an accelerometer, and more, to offer a native-like app experience.
Its features list includes:
- Offers flexibility
- It’s an open-source framework
- Single codebase
- It is compatible with all platforms
- Robust Backend
- Offers several third-party tools to manage apps
- Faster & easy development process
Use Case:
- This framework works across many platforms, and its core languages are CSS3, and HTML5, which makes it adaptable to hardware components like GPS, accelerometer, and camera. PhoneGap is simple to learn, allowing developers to create a single app easily accessed across multiple devices.
Top Brands: Its list of top brands consists of The DHS Program, Wikipedia, Paylutin
HealthTap, Trip Case
Corona SDK
Compared to the other app development frameworks, Corona is comprehensive, fast, and straightforward. This free cross-platform app development tool is best for creating high-quality apps for mobile and desktop platforms. It uses robust & lightweight scripting languages called Lua to offer apps & games with higher graphics quality. It allows testing end-products instantly on the actual devices, and as the app is developed & deployed, the code will update automatically.
Its feature list includes:
- Strong API support for integrating with any native library
- Multiple plugins for all the requirements
- Optimal performance
- Real-time testing
- Lua-based platform, a lightweight & robust scripting language for games
- Faster development process
- Exceeds 500,000 Corona developers
- Best-quality visuals
- Wide range of plugins
Use Case:
- This popular open-source framework is free-to-use and creates mobile game apps.
- It’s built on Lua scripting language that’s simple to use, lightweight, and adaptable to creating game apps.
- This framework helps develop cross-platform mobile game apps that can be accessed via different platforms like Nook, Android, and iOS.
Top Brands: Tiny Boxes, Grow Beets Clicker, Rider, I Love Hue, Zip Zap
Mobile Angular UI
This open-source framework merges the Angular & Bootstrap frameworks. It provides various UI components, like overlays, switches, sidebars, navbars, scrollable, etc., to offer robust and appealing user interfaces for apps. At the same time, this framework supports overthrow.js & fastclick.js to create rich experiences. It also promotes cross-browser compatibility, allowing automatic handling of JavaScript code for every browser.
Its feature list includes:
- Easy-to-use
- Lightweight
- Provides Interactive components
- Responsive Framework
- No jQuery dependencies
- More straightforward conversion from desktop or web to mobile app
- Build HTML5 hybrid mobile & desktop apps
- Integration with fastclick.js & overthrow.js
Use Case:
- This framework is created with Bootstrap, AngularJS, and HTML5, and those familiar with Twitter Bootstrap & AngularJS can learn it quickly to use Mobile Angular UI for app development.
- Essentially, the Mobile Angular UI framework adds app development components like scrollable areas, sidebars, switches, overlays, and so on that were not there in Bootstrap 3.
- Mobile Angular UI primarily uses Overthrow.js and Fastclick.js to develop modern mobile and web apps.
Top Brands: Nebular, Awesome Angular, Starter Kits, Ngx-admin, Storybook
Appcelerator Titanium
This cross-platform and open-source app development framework enables developers to develop native apps for platforms like Windows, Android, and iOS using a single codebase. It uses Ally and built-in UI components to simplify app development and speed up the development of user-friendly apps. Appcelerator integrates its APIs and UP components to develop a high-performance app, and this cloud-based framework enables developers to use it whenever and wherever they want.
Its feature list includes:
- Enhanced Code Reusability
- Easy API Integration
- Easy access to third-party libraries
- Faster Development Process
- Compatible with different platforms
- Live app preview
- Less development cost and time
- It offers many features for API management
Use Case:
- This framework includes the idea of web tech-based app development and uses JavaScript to create native apps for Windows, Android, and iOS, from a single code.
- It permits app testing and app development simultaneously.
- The Titanium SDK of Appcelerator is an ideal app development kit that includes several APIs to access native UI components, like menus, hardware functionalities, navigation bars, and dialogue boxes.
Top Brands: Navistar’s. CBC’s. Bed Bath & Beyond, Alaska State Legislature, THE BODY SHOP
Mobile App Development Framework Categories
Mobile app frameworks can also be classified into the top 3 categories i.e. Native Apps, Hybrid Apps, and Web Apps, so let’s quickly explore them.
Native Mobile App Framework
An app for a device or platform. This framework helps build native apps for dedicated platforms, and they’re mainly designed to satiate the requirements of a specific operating system, including Android, iOS, and Windows.
Hybrid Mobile App Framework
An app combining both native and web apps is called a hybrid app. These apps are created from a single code base for any platform. The hybrid mobile app framework helps develop cross-platform apps just because of its capability of both web and iOS native app development frameworks.
Web App Framework
Mobile apps designed with a web app framework aim to deliver web pages on distinct web platforms for any device. Known as a web framework, this is a software technology helping programmers to practice smooth web app development for web app programming interfaces (APIs), web services, and web servers.
What are the Types of mobile App frameworks?
Here are the various types of mobile app frameworks:
High-level Full-Stack Framework
This framework offers a complete infrastructure to create full-fledged enterprise apps quickly & efficiently. Experts recommend this framework to develop custom software solutions, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, or various corporate apps. For instance, with the CUBA platform, developers get a full-stack architecture to create three-tier apps. It even comprises commonly used functionalities for the enterprise apps, such as soft deletion, data-aware components, file storage, and high-level modules: authentication and authorization, data audit, and more.
“No Frameworks” or High-Level Programming Approach
With this approach, the developers get next-level applicability, flexibility, and manageability to create successful apps. But when it comes to creating enterprise apps, you can reinvent every facet, and the procedure gets prolonged.
Narrow-Focused Frameworks
This group is designed for streamlining the mobile app development process with the help of enhanced abstraction and painless API. When used correctly, these frameworks offer a good mix of speed & flexibility to the chosen development environment.
Code Generators/Aggregators
The main idea behind this class is pacing up the initial stage of app development. It also configures your app based on the Narrow-focused frameworks. For instance, JHipster generated a Spring-based app with Angular-based UI. After the startup stage, it is not ideal to use such frameworks.
Low Code – No Code Frameworks
Tiny bits of logic development are needed at this stage. Hence, if the app aspects like its performance, deployment options, UI components, integrations, and more don’t meet your expectation, this will be the fastest way to create the app.
How to Choose the Right App Development Framework?
Before picking the best Mobile App Development Frameworks, here are the criteria to implement:
- Platform Feature & Support: Consider the platform features and support that a particular framework uses and decide which can be helpful for your app before making the final choice.
- Development Speed Considerations: Make sure that the development speed of the framework is fast enough, as otherwise, it can slow the development process.
- App Development Cost: Consider the development cost to decide which framework to use.
- Applicability and Flexibility: It is an essential factor as well. The framework’s applicability and flexibility matter greatly in the app development process, so decide accordingly. Check which part of the mobile app you can create using that framework and if you need just one framework or a set of frameworks. Go through the architecture, performance, and other limitations of that framework.
- Security Risks: It is crucial to go through the involved security risks so that you do not face an unexpected security hurdle in the middle of development.
Conclusion
In this article, our app development team has selected the best mobile app development frameworks available in 2024. It is a list of popular and efficient frameworks that can be helpful in the development of your app. Although you can Hire Dedicated Mobile App Developers with Octal IT Solution.
