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A mobile app development framework supports and accelerates the process of application development. The demand for these frameworks has grown enormously in the past few decades, as having a mobile presence has become imperative for the survival of a lot of businesses. As mobility continues to transform industries globally, mobile-first companies are able to capture the imagination of the ever-increasing mobile society.
However, merely breaking into the mobile market does not necessarily translate into success for a business. To succeed in a highly competitive marketplace, organizations must correctly identify their customers' needs and build digital solutions or applications that meet them. To build a new mobile application, a company must have a clear vision and strategy. This is critical to building an application that resonates with its intended audience.
Although native apps offer an unmatched experience in terms of aesthetics and functionality, native apps are costly to build and maintain. The diversity of devices and platforms makes maximum user penetration challenging with native apps. The solution lies in creating a web, hybrid, or cross-platform mobile app for businesses with budget constraints by leveraging mobile app development frameworks.
Modern mobile app development frameworks offer many in-built advantages, such as a powerful foundation to build applications on and a range of plugins and add-ons. The framework renders the app for the desired platform with the developer’s code using pre-built components such as compilers, debuggers, toolsets, coding interfaces, etc.
According to the data.ai's State of Mobile 2023 Report, “Mobile services broke records at 255 billion downloads — with global consumers downloading more than 485,000 apps per minute. Time spent daily has reached 5 hours in the top mobile-first markets.” Mobile ad spending is on track to hit $362 billion in 2023, while there’s been an upward trend witnessed in the Baby Boomers, Millennials and GenZ are spending more and more on apps related to finance, dating, food delivery, health, fitness, etc.
According to a report from Statista, as 2021 dawned upon us, the number of global mobile users had crossed the 7 billion mark. In the new reality, Digital Transformation has assumed greater significance. The users have exceptionally high standards in terms of functionality and performance when it comes to mobile applications. Therefore, a mobile app’s success translates into adapting digital content to transcend seamlessly across varying screen sizes and a broad range of devices encompassing Android and iOS platforms.
Obtaining the services of a reliable mobile app development company or hiring a mobile app developer on a freelance basis can enable a business to build mobile apps that are fast, responsive, and deliver exceptional user experiences. Leveraging mobile app development frameworks makes the mobile app development process efficient and fast.
Best Mobile App Development Frameworks in 2023
- Flutter
Flutter is Google’s open-source framework for developing native Android and iOS apps using a single codebase. It is a revolutionary SDK for cross-platform app development that stands out as it uses a unique approach for delivering apps with a native-like look and feel. It is an unmatched and highly reliable mobile UI framework for creating stunning apps quickly by speeding up the development process. Flutter is a complete framework that includes widgets, a rendering engine, testing and integrating APIs and tools to help developers build and deploy aesthetically pleasing mobile apps. Examples of applications built using Flutter development include Google, Alibaba, and Abbey Road Studios.
- React Native
Developed and maintained by Facebook, React Native is an open-source, cross-platform app development framework that has quickly become the developers’ top choice. React Native helps develop Android and iOS mobile apps seamlessly. Mobile apps of top brands such as Tesla, Airbnb, Skype, and Amazon Prime are the best examples of React Native apps. Faster development and deployment are the primary reasons behind the universal popularity of React Native. Other notable features of React Native include reusable components, integration with third-party plugins, and component-based GUI development for front-end applications.
- Ionic
Ionic is an open-source framework built with Apache Cordova (PhoneGap) and Angular, allowing developers to build Android and iOS apps for seamless mobile performance. The framework helps the developers build robust and feature-rich native applications. Ionic’s most significant advantage is that it allows the developers to use several UI elements, such as filters, forms, views, navigation menus, and action sheets, in the application design. Ionic is a complete framework that enables developers to build Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and hybrid and cross-platform mobile applications.
- Xamarin
Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned open-source framework for developing native and high-performance Android, iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS apps leveraging .NET and C# programming languages. The framework empowers businesses to provide native performance and unique user experiences to end-users. In Xamarin, an abstraction layer controls the communication between the underlying platform and shared code. The framework allows the developers to build an ecosystem with APIs, back-end, components, etc., using tools, libraries, and programming languages supported by an active community.
- Native Script
This open-source framework is preferred to reduce the time and code of the app loads. This framework is adept at creating mobile apps that are Typescript, CSS, Vue.js, Javascript, and Angular enabled. Leading companies prefer Native Scripts because it has features like appropriate backend support, business support, complete access to iOS APIs and Android, cross-platform application, and a native user interface without web views.
- Apache Cordova
Formerly known as PhoneGap, Apache Cordova is a leading mobile app development framework that is developer-friendly. It is a cross-platform app development framework that leverages CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript to build mobile applications. Cordova plugins enable the developers to access device hardware capabilities such as GPS, camera, and accelerometer to deliver a native-like app experience. Apache Cordova’s notable features include a faster development process with a single codebase and third-party app management tools.
- Framework7
Framework7 is an open-source framework that is very easy to learn and use. It allows the developers to build Android, iOS, and desktop apps with a native-like look and feel using popular web technologies such as HTML5, JavasScript, and CSS3. Framework7 provides additional support for Vue.js, React, and Svelte. Another attractive feature of Framework7 is its stunning UI elements, including features such as an action sheet, list view, popup, side panels, layout grid, and more. Framework7 makes the development process easy, convenient, and fast.
- JQuery Mobile
JQuery Mobile is a hybrid mobile app development framework that helps build platform-independent apps. The framework uses JavaScript library and HTML to build responsive websites on various devices such as smartphones, tablets, and desktops. JQuery leverages the HTML5-based framework and the ThemeRoller to offer highly customizable themes for mobile apps and web applications. JQuery Mobile comes in two variants, namely, a customized framework and a stable version.
- Sencha Ext JS
Sencha Ext JS is a modern web and mobile app development framework for creating extremely fluid, cross-platform applications. It’s the most comprehensive JavaScript framework and is preferred by the development community to accelerate the development of data-intensive HTML5 applications. Developers get access to over 140 pre-integrated UI components and an array of user extensions and tools, including, but not limited to, forms, lists, HTML5 calendars, grids, menus, and toolbars. One of the most useful tools this application development framework provides is ‘Sencha Architect’, which reduces time to market by allowing developers to create HTML5 applications using its ‘drag and drop’ features.
- Onsen UI
Onsen UI is one of the best application development frameworks for building complex web applications that deliver native-like experiences across platforms with the same source code. It’s easy to learn using Onsen UI as the software provides lots of learning resources on its website and is compatible with Angular JS 1, Angular2+, React, and Vue. As a modern and developer-friendly application development framework, Onsen UI provides a great collection of UI components, such as tabs, stack navigation, and lists, that further streamline development and accelerate time to market.
Best Mobile Development Frameworks – Final Words
App development frameworks streamline application development and allow developers to innovate at scale. Thankfully, developers have a lot of options to choose from when it comes to building an application that performs across devices and operating systems.
At Kellton, we help our clients build mobile applications that connect them with their customers at a deeper level. Depending on the specific project needs, timelines, budget, and several other factors, we choose the best framework for mobile app development for our clients; after all, we are a technology-agnostic company and believe in creating infinite possibilities with technology. Connect with our application development experts here to learn more about the best app development frameworks and how we can help you with your next project.
