The popularity of mobile applications and customer-based mobile apps has grown rapidly over the last few years. App stores are immersed with millions of mobile applications that are covering multiple topics and genres.
In fact, the app development industry is continuously evolving its dimensions by introducing thousands of new mobile apps every day.
However, many app developers or app developing companies find obstacles in deciding whether they should develop an app for Android or iOS. This is because both platforms are popular and powerful.
For consumer applications, it is better to select one single platform first and create an awesome native experience for it. Well, there are millions of users on each platform, and they want to gain a fluid experience with their apps.
Undoubtedly, cross-platform applications have restrictions in terms of what they deliver. But, still, we cannot neglect its powerful advantages that can help you build your first mobile app.
In this blog post, we bring you the 10 best cross-platform mobile development tools that will help you build an amazing mobile app.
Since different cross-platform mobile development tools have different features, some focus on data security, some only on gaming, while others specialize in allowing you to use whatever programming language you like. So, this blog post will be helpful for you as we have listed the most powerful cross-platform for app development.
PhoneGap
PhoneGap, which is owned by Adobe, is the most popular cross-platform development tool within the development community. If you are a new app developer, then this tool is ideal for you, as it is based on the open-source Apache Cordova project and is completely free. You can translate your HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript assets and the tool will do the rest of the work on its own with ease.
You can use its Hydration feature to get quicker debug and build cycles. By combining builds faster, your updates will be taken directly to your testers, and previously installed apps, determining all are working on the latest version.
In fact, after completing your app, you can freely share it with your team members for getting their tips or advice regarding the app.
PhoneGap not only creates an app for iOS and Android but also for Windows and BlackBerry. So, it is a dynamic cross-platform mobile development tool.
Cocos2d
Cocos2d is a family of open-source software frameworks used for creating cross-platform mobile apps and games. This tool is essentially used in two-dimensional game development. Plus, it offers five different platform options to app developers to develop an app in their preferred programming language. The family of Cocos2d consists of:
- Cocos2d-x: It is an open-source cross-platform game framework that uses C++. It is used to develop games and other apps.
- Cocos2d-JS: This is another powerful cross-platform game framework that is written in JavaScript.
- Cocos2dXNA: It is a 2D/3D game framework that is used particularly for XNA in C#.
- Cocos2d-ObjC: It is an open-source framework used for creating 2D games by writing Xcode and Objective-C on iOS for Apple AppStore.
- Cocos2d (Python): It is an influential cross-platform tool written on Python. It works on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Sencha
Sencha is a versatile cross-platform tool that allows you to develop your mobile apps in HTML5. We can say, it has become the most popular tool among web developers because it works across different devices on multiple platforms and enhance productivity with pre-built elements that saves a lot of time for a team while writing code.
After developing your HTML5 code, you can convert it to both the Android and iOS platforms by using a translation tool, such as PhoneGap. (See above)
Appcelerator Titanium
With the use of JavaScript, Appcelerator Titanium’s SDK (Software Development Kit) builds native Android and iOS apps by reusing anywhere from 60% to 90% of the same code for all applications that you develop. This saves a lot of time while developing a cross-platform mobile app.
As it is an open-source tool, hundreds and thousands of your peer developers are continuously contributing to it to make it an exceptional app and also add additional functionality to it.
Corona
Corona is developed to enable fast mobile app development. Its SDK allows you to start coding your new app within five minutes. It is one of the great cross-platform mobile development tools that is resized for 2D gaming graphics and helps you create games 10 times quicker.
It enables you to publish to all the popular platforms and is top-in-class for code reusability. In fact, you can add anything that you need to your app by calling any native API or library from the Corona code.
Xamarin
With the help of Xamarin, you can write up your apps in C#, and share the same code on Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac. It is an amazing mobile development tool that comes with app store delivery, performance testing, monitoring, etc. It also has the ability to perform virtual tests on over 1000 devices to ensure everything is working and displaying in the same manner as it should be.
Xamarin has developed a powerful cross-platform mobile development platform tool, which is used by big brands, such as IBM, Microsoft, and Foursquare.
5App
5App is first developed for companies designing apps for their employees to use. It basically focuses on data security when using HTML5 and JavaScript coding to translate apps to iOS and Android. It is one of the easy-to-use cross-platform mobile development tools that can help in increasing the overall productivity of the business.
Unity 3D
Unity 3D is a robust and compatible mobile development platform that allows you to create multiplatform 2D and 3D games and interactive experiences. After developing your code in UnityScript, c#, you can translate your games to 17 multiple platforms such as Android, iOS, Windows, Playstation, Xbox, Linux, web, and Linux.
Qt
Qt is a subscription-based service that allows you to write up a code in C++, and then export the same app to multiple platforms like iOS, Android, or Windows. After exporting the apps, the Qt interface enables you to access your app on their relevant platforms and devices, so that you can view how the app is working and you can make the changes accordingly. The best thing about this tool is that you don’t need to run a test on so many different devices.
Alpha Anywhere
Alpha Anywhere is an excellent mobile development tool that provides the app developer with multiple options when it comes to programming languages, such as JavaScript, C#, Xbasic, VB.NET, etc. Moreover, the website also offers step-by-step AV tutorials that can help a new app, developer.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we have collected the top ten cross-platform mobile development tools that can help you build a mobile app for different platforms and devices. You can also choose the tool to create your mobile app.
Author Bio: Lucy Barret is a WordPress Developer at HireWPGeeks Ltd. and handles a team of WordPress developers who are experts in converting HTML to WordPress themes with guaranteed client satisfaction. She is also a passionate blogger and loves to share WordPress tutorials.
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