How To Select Mobile App Development Framework In 2022

by Vincent Martinot | Guest Contributor | DIGITAL MARKETING ,BUSINESS

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It is already a known fact that only a portion of apps across the stores actually enjoy a retention rate spanning across a year or more. Most apps for one reason or the other just fail to engage users beyond a few months after download. Often compromising user experience and app performance are responsible for dumping an app.

Choice of the right technology stack, particularly the frontend technology plays a crucial role in shaping the user experience of an app. There are several great frontend development frameworks and all have their pros and cons. This is why we are here to tell you about top app development frameworks and why and when to choose them for your app project. Here we go.

React Native
React Native, developed and maintained by Facebook, is the most loved cross-platform app development framework with a robust and active developer community. Component-based architecture, reusability of code, and developer-friendly features like Hot Reloading make React Native so widely popular.

Some of the definitive features of React Native include the following.

• React Native comes with a robust repository of reusable components that can be used to shape the look and feel user experience of apps for both Android and iOS platforms.

• React Native allows reusing as much as 85% of the core codebase across both iOS and Android platforms.
• React Native offers a Hot Reloading feature to allow app developers to incorporate coding changes in the running app and evaluate the changes in real-time.
• React Native uses a JavaScript bridge to connect to the native UI layers of both iOS and Android for delivering a truly native user experience.

You can find React Native more appropriate for developing the app frontend in the following conditions.

• For building really ambitious cross-platform mobile apps ensuring optimum native user experience and performance.
• When you prefer JavaScript technology and component-based architecture lower learning curve and faster development.
• When your app needs a lot of third-party integrations.
• When you want a robust technology with the least maintenance requirements.
  
  

Flutter
Flutter, developed and maintained by Google is an open-source and free cross-platform framework that uses Dart programming language. It is the most popular cross-platform development framework after React Native and is well known for the repository of its UI widget library and modular architecture.

Some of the key features of Flutter include the following.

• Hot Reload feature to check the impact of code changes in real-time.
• UI Widget library for shaping the UI and UX of the app across both iOS and Android platforms.
• Flutter Fix command-line tool to clean up the unresponsive APIs automatically.
• Support for a wide range of IDEs such as Xcode, Visual Studio, Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, and a few others.
• Inbuilt testing and debugging tools.
• Inbuilt support for Google Firebase backend. Flutter can just be the right framework choice in the following conditions.  
• When you need a modular framework for incremental development or MVP projects.
• When you prefer UI widgets to create native UIs instead of using a bridge for connecting the native UI layer.
• When you need a robust cross-platform technology outside of the JavaScript family.
  
  

Ionic
Ionic as the open-source hybrid app development framework uses tried and trusted web technologies such as Angular and Apache Cordova. Ionic builds a single hybrid app that can run on all platforms including the web, desktop, iOS, and Android.

Some of the key features of Ionic include the following.

• Ionic happens to be a very low footprint framework helping to build lightweight and high-speed apps.
• Ionic allows using a lot of UI components in the app such as easy navigation, filtration, views, inputs, and many others.
• Ionic comes equipped with a lot of ready-to-use JavaScript components.
• Ionic apps are built thoroughly by following web standards for easy deployment across all platforms. Ionic can be chosen for app projects in the following conditions.  
• Ionic is great to turn your website into a hybrid app for all mobile platforms as well as desktop and web.
• When you need to launch a high-performance app at a small budget by relying on trusted and tested web technologies.
• When you focus upon targeting a larger app user audience without spending a fortune.

Xamarin
Xamarin is a powerful cross-platform app development framework created and maintained by Microsoft. The framework uses C# programming language and makes lean apps with less coding resulting in faster development time.

Some of the definitive features of Xamarin include the following.

• Xamarin instead of offering a single SDK for all platforms provides two separate SDKs for iOS and Android.
• Xamarin by relying on Microsoft .Net framework can utilize the native libraries for delivering native user experience.
• Xamarin offers ready access to the SkiaSharp graphics engine for fixing the UI design requirements.
• Xamarin can be used alongside game engines such as Wave Engine MonoGame and Xenko for game development.  
• Xamarin can be chosen for app development in the following conditions.  
• When you want to build a hybrid app with native user experience and app performance.
• When you want a robust cross-platform framework that uses Microsoft languages and frameworks for development.
• When you want great offline performance and robust security based upon Microsoft technologies.

Concluding Thought 
Obviously, within the short length of this post, we still could not cover all the cross-platform development technologies. There are still a few frameworks like NativeScript and Cordova that are well received by many developers and app projects. But the above four frameworks still lead in popularity and presence across app projects. There is no good or bad of app development frameworks and the choice only depends upon the nature of your project, budget, available skills, and timeline.

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About the author:

Vincent Martinot is a keen writer and managing director at EurecaApps – one of the leading app development companies helping businesses in developing robust mobile applications.

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