For enterprises looking forward to developing an iOS and Android app in a limited amount of time, cross platform app development stands as an effective solution. It allows mobile app developers to create apps for both iOS and Android using a single codebase.

Cross-platform app development tools are frameworks that allow developers to write code once and deploy it on multiple platforms and operating systems.

In this blog, we’ll explore the five most popular cross-platform app development frameworks in 2024, based on their features, performance, and community support.

React Native

React Native is a robust framework that allows developers to build almost native-like apps using JavaScript and React, a popular library for creating user interfaces. It uses native components and APIs to render the app on different platforms. This results in top notch performance and user experience.

Advantages of React Native:

• Large and active community of developers and contributors, providing abundant resources, tutorials, and support.
• It supports hot reloading and live reloading, which enable developers to see the changes in the app instantly without rebuilding it.
• Modular and declarative architecture, which makes the code easy to read, reuse, and maintain.
• Offers a rich set of libraries and plugins that extend its functionality and compatibility with various features and services.

Flutter

Flutter is a framework based on Dart, a modern and expressive programming language, that allows you to create beautiful and fast mobile apps. It uses a proprietary rendering engine called Skia to draw the app on different platforms, ensuring a consistent and pixel-perfect user interface.

Advantages of Flutter:

• Has a hot reload and hot restart feature, which enable developers to see the changes in the app in milliseconds and seconds, respectively.
• A widget-based approach that allows developers to create customized and responsive UI elements with ease and flexibility.
• The stateful hot reload feature preserves the app state and data during the development process, allowing for faster and smoother testing and debugging.
• Rich set of widgets and animations that provide a native-like look and feel to the app.

Xamarin

Xamarin is a framework that allows developers to build cross-platform apps using C#. It uses native components and APIs to render the app on different platforms.

Advantages of Xamarin: 

• A mature and stable community of developers and contributors, providing abundant resources, tutorials, and support.
• A shared codebase enables developers to reuse up to 90% of the code across different platforms, reducing development time and cost.
• Native integration allows developers to access the native features and services of each platform, such as camera, GPS, push notifications, etc.
• Xamarin Test Cloud, a cross-platform testing and debugging tool, enables developers to test the app on thousands of real devices and scenarios.

Ionic

Ionic uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create cross-platform apps. It uses a web view to render the app on different platforms, ensuring a cross-platform compatibility and scalability.

Advantages of Ionic:

• A simple and easy-to-use development environment that enables developers to create apps with minimal coding and configuration.
• Web-based approach that allows developers to leverage existing web skills and tools, such as frameworks, libraries, and editors.
• Live reload feature that enables developers to see the changes in the app instantly without rebuilding it.
• Large and active community of developers and contributors who provide abundant resources, tutorials, and support.

NativeScript

NativeScript is a framework that allows developers to craft cross-platform apps using JavaScript or TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript that adds static typing and other features.

Advantages of NativeScript:

• Direct access to native features and services, which enables developers to use any native library or SDK without any wrappers or plugins.
• The code sharing feature enables developers to reuse the same code for web and mobile development, reducing development time and cost.
• The native UI feature enables developers to create native-like UI elements with CSS and XML, providing a consistent and intuitive user interface.
• The hot module replacement feature enables developers to update the app modules without losing the app state or data.

The Best Cross-Platform App Development Company

If you want the best of cross-platforms, WDI has you covered. It’s the leading cross-platform app development company with over 20 years of experience and access to all the technologies mentioned above.

Just give WDI a call to start your project!