What is the best mobile app development framework? For developing Android applications, developers use the Android App Development Framework that serve as a kitchen with ingredients to cook a dish.
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Importance of Mobile Apps
Mobile devices, without any doubt, have become an integral part of everyone’s life now. A day without a phone is the worst nightmare, and no one even wants to imagine that life – irrespective of gender and age.
But the question is, what makes smartphones brilliant and valuable? A one-word answer is applications. Yes, mobile apps, which are lingering in your phone right now.
Apps are like the utilities that make phones valuable and usable. Because of them, our lives are getting more uncomplicated and fast. From online shopping to booking a ride to order food from a favorite restaurant, they help us in every stage of life.
So, if we say that high-performance and user-friendly applications are bringing convenience to everyone’s table would not be wrong.
Not a specific figure, but according to some statistics, Google Play Store has over 5 million apps and growing at incredible speed. That is the reason why more and more organizations are investing in Android applications.
These are the significant sources in today’s digital world to promote the brand and business worldwide to the potential audience. The engagement opportunities are also immense with them.
What The App Development Framework Means?
App development framework is like software toolkits through which programmers show their logical creativity and develop digital products in the form of applications. They are the birthplace of all kinds of applications you see today on your phones and the internet.
Their purpose is to simplify the development and design process, along with easy to manage changes and error fixing.
The market is full of app development frameworks and finding the best one to meet your requirement is challenging. You need one, perfect from all aspects to get ahead in the market.
The factors that influence app development framework choice include efficiency, performance, cost, and speed. If a platform is satisfying all of these factors for you, you are on the right path.
How To Select The Best Framework For Android App Development?
It may sometimes be daunting to choose the app development framework right for your application, specifically in the case of startups.
But if working a little extra in advance, like analyzing app requirements and brand needs, your selection process will be less challenging.
Opting the app development framework right for you is crucial as the market is highly competitive today and staying on top is prevalent.
It’s a race of who got the most downloads and profit.
So, to win the race, you need speed along with security to reach the finish line safely.
List of Top 6 Best Android App Development Frameworks
Let’s see the top 6 android app development frameworks which you can use to achieve new heights.
React Native
Introduced in 2015 by tech industry giant Facebook, React Native is the cross-platform open-source Android app development framework.
- It is best for Android, iOS, Web, and UWP development.
- Using JavaScript and React, developers can develop applications parallel to the Native ones.
- In addition, its UI components shape the app to look specific to the platform standards, and the extensive library accelerates the development time.
- With React Native, you can easily access the device hardware like camera and microphone.
- The code developer program in this framework becomes optimized for the platform, and the developer can amend changes into it spontaneously as per requirement without recompiling it.
- Looking at its reliability element, it’s a tool from Facebook – So, it can never turn back on us.
- Being open-source, it is free to use and build applications.
However, the areas in which React Native lacks are built-in navigation and developing complex animations or transitions. But it is not a big deal as every Android application does not require these elements.
Flutter
This app development framework is from Google – Open-source and most preferable for cross-platform app development.
- The native feel of apps is the highlighted point on which Flutter rule over other frameworks.
- You can create a stunning app’s user interface along with top-notch embedding performance with this superior framework.
- Flutter consists of rendering engines, widgets, API integration, testing, and other tools that make it a complete package.
- All these functionalities allow developers to program and deliver optimized android mobile applications.
To know this platform’s worth and power, you should be aware that the Google app and Alibaba are developed on it.
Xamarin
In the league of the framework, Xamarin also worth giving it a try. It is a tool from Microsoft that gets utilized for coding modern Android applications.
- Every Android app development agency uses Xamarin as their primary Android app development framework because of its advanced toolsets, perfect for app development.
- Besides, the platform also allows developers to work with a shared codebase in XAML or C#.
- As it is from Microsoft, the inclusion of new features, improving existing ones, and fixing bugs in updates makes this framework the best choice to go for.
Xamarin highlighted feature set includes:
- Single-technology stack,
- Native-like performance,
- Device compatibility,
- Full hardware support, and
- API integration.
The excellent developer community support also makes it a better choice.
Ionic
Ionic, without holding back anything, came in 2012 and gained popularity worldwide.
- It’s again an open-source, freely available Android app development framework, MIT certified.
- Ionic enables developers to use modern technologies, including JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
- It serves greatly if you want to work on hybrid app development. If you have an idea of web development, the development environment of the Ionic framework will not be new for you.
- You can conveniently program mobile, web, and desktop applications in it from a singular codebase.
- The integration with third-party libraries like AngularJS is also straightforward.
- Moreover, it has a simple CLI (Command Line Interface) that embeds blazing fast performance with emulators, logging, and live reloading.
- Cordova plugins are also part of Ionic, allowing developers to access components from different frameworks.
Kotlin
Kotlin is a general-purpose app development programming language.
- JavaScript and Java Virtual Machine are the elements on which Kotlin reliance is based.
- Developer can significantly improve their work productivity with Kotlin as it enhances the coding experience by enabling interoperability capability.
- Therefore, a mixed-language project is one of the focus areas of Kotlin for app development projects.
Kotlin, along with Java, can impressively enhance the efficiency and app quality for application developers. This is because the framework ensures to provide improved syntax, concise code, and good abstractions.
Sencha Touch (Bonus)
Sencha touch primarily focuses on developing native mobile applications.
- It utilizes HTML5 and JavaScript that allow programming dynamic and versatile applications.
- App development in this framework offers high performance as the platform is enabled with hardware acceleration.
- The UI components of Sencha Touch are also worth noticing.
GUI-based control, easy customization, animations, transitions, widgets, plugins, and native themes are some of the critical features of this app development framework.
Final Verdict
Out of numerous, we highlighted the top five android app development frameworks that are robust and preferable for every developer.
But it is essential to realize that the choice of app development framework is primarily dependent on the project’s requirement.
Therefore, the app development framework you choose to go with must satisfy the purpose which you want to meet.
The proper selection can make you, and the wrong one can break you, so be mindful of that. Give time to think and decide before locking to something not appreciable.
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