Hello, reader! Are you here because you are going to launch your mobile app adapted for several OSes at once? Thus, to speed up the process of custom development for these OSes, it makes sense to consider platforms that provide customizable patterns, plugins, and libraries. Actually, the most popular four of them will be discussed below.

What Are Mobile App Development Platforms?

In a nutshell, these are software solutions that provide developers with ready-made tools and resources for more efficiently (faster and with fewer errors) creating mobile software for iOS, Android, Windows, etc.

Benefits of Mobile App Development Platforms

Their main advantages include the following:

• They have many ready-made components that speed up and simplify the work of developers;
• They reduce the number of errors with built-in compilers;
• They make development cost-effective by speeding up the work process.

Note that the list of benefits, depending on your specific choice, can be much more extensive.

Top 4 Mobile App Development Platforms

So, what are these four platforms?

Xamarin

Xamarin is an open-source platform for building modern, high-performance cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, and Windows using .NET. Offering a high level of abstraction, it manages the interaction between the shared code (in C#) and the underlying platform code – thus, in most cases, developers can use about 80-90% of the shared code. Also, note that this platform implements advanced features such as memory allocation and garbage collection.

Flutter

Flutter is an opensource platform from Google for creating cross-platform mobile applications. Developers use it to build rich, responsive user interfaces with a single code base written in Dart.

Providing performance close to native software, using the Google Skia graphics library with uniform visual elements (instead of native ones), and having a low entry threshold, this platform is considered one of the most advanced solutions for implementing projects of varying complexity.

React Native

React Native is a platform from Facebook for creating cross-platform software for Android, iOS, web, and Windows. With built-in UI controls and seamless access to native ones, React Native provides a user experience as close to native as possible. It requires a basic understanding of JavaScript and TypeScript, so its entry barrier may be higher than expected.

NativeScript

This is one of the most breakthrough opensource JavaScript frameworks used in the development of cross-platform mobile applications with native performance and access to native APIs on the Apple iOS and Android platforms.

The brainchild of Progress and then – of nStudio, NativeScript provides professionals with a rich selection of plugins (over 700), as well as strong community support. NativeScript apps can be built in JavaScript or any programming language that translates to JavaScript, such as TypeScript. This platform is also compatible with Angular and Vue.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know all the key features of the leading custom mobile app development platforms, you can make an informed choice in favor of one of them. We hope this short article has helped you with that.

It’s also important to consider your specific project requirements and team expertise when choosing a platform. Each platform has its strengths and may be better suited to certain types of projects. Evaluating these aspects will ensure you select the most effective solution for your mobile app development needs, leading to a more successful and efficient development process.