We cannot imagine the modern world without gadgets, the internet, helper services, and so on. The digital age has arrived, and this needs to be taken into account in doing business. Every self-respecting service to provide services or products is concerned with creating its app, this step is one of the main ones in market promotion. Mostly the app market is dominated by Android and iOS products and developing apps for both platforms is crucial in business. The solution to this problem has been cross-platform mobile app development, which allows you to create apps that run on multiple operating systems. This method greatly reduces the need to manage two separate code bases, resulting in faster time-to-market for your business and lower overall development costs. In this article, we will take a look at cross-platform development, approaches to it, and the leading frameworks in use today.

What is Cross-Platform Mobile Development?

What is cross-platform mobile development? It is a strategy for creating a digital product where a single code base is used to create applications that are compatible with multiple mobile platforms, primarily the most popular iOS and Android. This way of creating apps eliminates the need to select and customize separate apps for each smartphone operating system, allowing developers to reuse a significant portion of the code. For example, frameworks such as React Native, Flutter, and Xamarin make this possible by compiling common code into platform-specific apps. Using cross-platform tools brings many benefits to the app development company. For example, this approach allows companies to save significantly in terms of time and financial resources and provides a more streamlined development process, and wider availability for the end user without compromising the user experience on different devices.

Different approaches to mobile app development

When it comes to mobile app development, there are several approaches, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. It is common to categorize into native, hybrid, and cross-platform development. Let’s talk about them in detail.

What is Native development? 

This is the most traditional method of writing digital code that is created separately for each operating platform (for example, Swift for iOS, and Kotlin for Android). Native development provides unrivaled performance and full access to device-specific features. This is the main advantage of this approach to app development. However, there is a downside, managing two code bases can be a time-consuming and costly process that requires significant resources.

What is Hybrid development? 

Hybrid development is another alternative approach. In hybrid development, applications are created using web technologies such as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. These applications run in a WebView system component and are wrapped in a native shell, providing access to native features. While this approach reduces development time, performance can sometimes lag behind fully native applications, a major negative factor.

What is Cross-platform development?

And our topic is cross-platform development. As we wrote above, cross-platform development uses a single codebase for multiple platforms. As a rule, the most popular ones are chosen, such as Android and iOS operating systems. So, as of 2024 in principle, Android dominates the global mobile operating system market with a significant share of about 69.88%, and iOS occupies about 29.39%. Frameworks such as Flutter or React Native transform code into native elements, providing better performance than hybrid apps. While this approach still has some limitations in terms of full access to platform-specific features, it provides significant efficiency gains over native development.

Native and cross-platform applications

Developers usually have a choice between native and cross-platform application development. This is a very important decision and the main influencing factor is the requirement of the project itself. Native applications built using platform-specific languages usually provide the best performance, a more pleasant user experience, the ability to integrate the user interface (UI), and access to all hardware features. However, a natively built application for one operating system will not work on another. It becomes necessary to create and manage two separate code bases, which can increase the final development time and cost.

Cross-platform applications, on the other hand, allow developers to write code once and deploy it on multiple platforms. This is particularly relevant in tight deadlines and limited financial resources. While historically applications developed using this type of framework have been considered inferior in performance, modern frameworks such as Flutter and React Native have made great strides in bridging the gap in performance and UI design flexibility compared to their native counterparts.

Pros and Cons of Cross-Platform Mobile Development

Let’s consider the pros and cons of cross-platform mobile development. We’ll start with the pros: 

Single Codebase for Multiple Platforms

One of the main benefits of this type of development is having a unified codebase for multiple platforms. This significantly simplifies the entire development process, speeds up deployment across major operating systems, and ensures quicker time-to-market for the product or service. 

Cost Efficiency 

This is another significant advantage. Developers work with a single codebase, rather than two separate ones. As a result, the total development cost is almost halved. Costs related to maintaining and paying separate teams for each platform (such as salaries, taxes), office space rent, and additional software or hardware are reduced. This makes cross-platform development particularly accessible for businesses, especially startups and small enterprises. 

Faster Development Cycles 

Cross-platform frameworks speed up development by enabling simultaneous deployment on multiple platforms. This ensures a quicker time-to-market, which is crucial in competitive industries. 

Unified User Experience 

This is another major benefit. From a developer’s perspective, a unified design language is maintained across all platforms, eliminating the need for additional resources to create and enhance two separate apps. For users, it ensures a consistent and familiar experience, regardless of whether they switch between Android and iOS.

Cons:

Potential for Performance Bottlenecks

While cross-platform frameworks have significantly improved, apps that require intensive graphics or intricate interactions with hardware may still face performance issues. Native apps tend to excel in these areas due to their close alignment with the operating system.

Limited Access to Platform-Specific Features

Cross-platform frameworks may not support all the native features of an operating system, or they may require additional coding to access those functionalities. While frameworks like Flutter are closing this gap, some advanced functionalities might still require native coding.

Complex Debugging Across Platforms

When errors occur, debugging can become more complex since the code must be examined across multiple platforms. Issues that arise on one platform may not necessarily exist on another, leading to increased troubleshooting time.

UI/UX Inconsistencies

Though many frameworks aim to offer a consistent user experience across platforms, subtle differences in design guidelines between Android and iOS might result in an app that doesn’t feel fully native on either platform.

Top Five Frameworks for Cross-Platform Mobile App Development

React Native

React Native, developed by Facebook, has gained immense popularity in recent years due to its ability to deliver high-performing, native-like apps using JavaScript. React Native enables developers to use a declarative programming model to build user interfaces, which improves performance and responsiveness. Thanks to its vast ecosystem of libraries, React Native is suitable for creating apps that require real-time data or complex interactions.

Flutter

Flutter, created by Google, is renowned for its performance and rich set of customizable widgets. Flutter allows developers to create natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop using the Dart programming language. Its fast performance and capability to create visually stunning applications make Flutter a top contender for businesses seeking engaging and responsive mobile apps.

.NET MAUI (formerly Xamarin)

Microsoft’s .NET MAUI, which evolved from Xamarin, is another prominent cross-platform framework that allows developers to create apps for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows from a single codebase. MAUI uses C# and the .NET framework, making it an excellent option for developers familiar with Microsoft technologies. Its seamless access to native APIs ensures that developers can create near-native apps with high performance and functionality.

Cordova (Adobe PhoneGap)

Cordova, formerly known as Adobe PhoneGap, is an open-source mobile development framework that allows developers to build mobile apps using standard web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. While it’s not as powerful in terms of performance compared to React Native or Flutter, Cordova is still a viable solution for simpler applications that don’t require extensive platform-specific functionalities.

Ionic

Ionic is a hybrid framework that integrates with Angular, React, and Vue to build cross-platform mobile apps using web technologies. Ionic offers a range of pre-built UI components that enable rapid development while maintaining a native-like experience. It also provides features like cloud services, app distribution, and testing tools, making it an appealing choice for hybrid app development.

Other Notable Frameworks:

• PhoneGap. One of the pioneers in cross-platform app development, PhoneGap helped shape the development landscape before it was deprecated in favor of Cordova.
• Kotlin Multiplatform. Kotlin Multiplatform is an exciting tool from JetBrains, allowing developers to share code between Android, iOS, and other platforms while still writing platform-specific code when necessary.
• NativeScript. NativeScript stands out for allowing developers to create truly native mobile applications with JavaScript, TypeScript, or Angular, giving them access to native APIs directly without the need for WebViews.
• Corona SDK. Primarily used for 2D game development, Corona SDK allows developers to create high-performance apps with minimal code, making it popular for building interactive, graphic-intensive apps.

Future of Cross-Platform App Development

Is there a future for cross-platform development? It looks promising today. There are several reasons for this positivity. For example, today the performance gap between native and cross-platform applications is constantly shrinking, thus leveling out one of the most negative characteristics of cross-platform development. New technologies are changing the situation in this area, providing developers with even more development opportunities: both high-quality user experience and near-native performance. Second, the need for rapid deployment of applications across devices is growing rapidly. Time-to-market in a highly competitive market is one of the most important factors of success, and cross-platform development provides the necessary speed.

How to Choose the Appropriate Near-Native or Hybrid App Framework

When selecting the right near-native or hybrid framework for mobile app development, it’s important to align the choice with your project’s specific goals, technical requirements, and future scalability. Here are key factors to guide you:

Complexity and Performance Needs

For apps requiring high performance and complex UI interactions, near-native frameworks like Flutter or React Native are ideal. These frameworks compile into native code, offering almost-native performance. Apps that require advanced features like real-time updates, animations, or AR/VR will benefit from these solutions.

In contrast, hybrid frameworks (like Ionic and Cordova) are better suited for simple, content-based apps with fewer performance demands, as they render apps in a webview.

User Interface and Experience (UI/UX)

For a consistent, native-like user experience across platforms, React Native and Flutter are top choices. They allow for a single codebase to produce near-native UI components, delivering a seamless experience on both Android and iOS.

Hybrid frameworks like Cordova and Ionic, on the other hand, use web technologies to render the UI, which may not provide the same fluidity or responsiveness as native components, especially for resource-intensive apps.

Development Time and Resource Optimization

Frameworks like React Native and Flutter allow significant code reuse across platforms, reducing the development time. This is especially helpful when you need to get your app to market quickly. Ionic is also effective for rapid deployment, but it’s better suited for apps where performance is not critical.

Hybrid frameworks typically involve faster setup but can require additional optimization efforts as your app grows more complex.

Development Team’s Skill Set

The skill set of your development team plays a crucial role in framework selection. If your team is already proficient in JavaScript, then React Native or Ionic might be the most natural choice, as both frameworks use JavaScript at their core.

Flutter, however, uses Dart, which has a steeper learning curve but provides superior UI flexibility. For teams familiar with Microsoft’s ecosystem, .NET MAUI (formerly Xamarin) might be ideal since it allows development in C#, leveraging their existing skills.

Access to Native Device Features

If your app relies on deep integration with device-specific hardware (e.g., GPS, camera, sensors), near-native frameworks like React Native and Flutter offer robust libraries and native modules that enable smooth access to these features. Hybrid frameworks, though capable of accessing hardware through plugins, can suffer from reduced performance or compatibility issues as the app grows more complex.

Support, Maintenance, and Ecosystem

React Native and Flutter boast large, active communities and are backed by major tech companies (Meta and Google, respectively). This ensures continuous updates, reliable third-party libraries, and strong developer support.

While Cordova and Ionic are mature frameworks, their communities may not be as large or active, making long-term maintenance more challenging, especially if your app requires regular updates or cutting-edge features.

Scalability and Future-Proofing

For projects with growth potential, React Native and Flutter provide more flexibility for future enhancements and scalability, due to their robust architectures and access to platform-specific components. This is essential if you plan on adding more features or supporting newer technologies (like foldable screens or wearable devices).

Hybrid frameworks like Cordova might struggle with scalability as the app grows, particularly in terms of performance and customization.

Conclusion

Cross-platform mobile development presents a valuable opportunity for businesses aiming to maximize their reach with minimal overhead. By leveraging the strengths of modern frameworks developers can create efficient, versatile apps that work across multiple platforms. As the technology continues to evolve, cross-platform frameworks will further enhance their capabilities, offering near-native performance and a seamless user experience, making them indispensable in the mobile app development landscape.