Flutter
Due to its simplicity and outstanding performance, Flutter, an open-source UI software development kit by Google, remains king in the development world. Flutter has gained a lot of fame among developers across the globe for its quick development turnaround and expressive, flexible UI elements. The framework’s primary programming language is Dart, which enables full compilation of the code to native (iOS and Android) in a single source.
With Flutter, developers can easily create appealing user interfaces in their applications by making use of the rich set of built-in widgets that implement the Material Design guidelines for Android and iOS Cupertino design for iOS. One of the most attractive features of Flutter is its implementation of a reactive programming model, which makes the user interface update live whenever there is a change in the application’s state. This update leads to a great extent to the smoothness and responsiveness of the resulting applications.
With “Hot Reload,” a feature in Flutter, developers can see the changes instantly without restarting the application. Meanwhile, Dart, the language used by Flutter, is not as popular as JavaScript, so it may present a learning curve for devs who come from other languages. Because of its engine being bundled with the application, Flutter applications are relatively larger, which could affect the download size and performance on low-end devices.
React Native
Facebook released the React Native framework with a fundamental purpose: to let developers build mobile apps in JavaScript and React while sharing a big part of the code between platforms. One of the major strengths of React Native is component reuse, which leads to low cost and short development time. The framework includes a wide range of pre-built components, which makes it easy to achieve a native look and feel.
The JavaScript mobile libraries bridge into the native mobile ecosystem, producing high-performance applications. React Native components map directly to the native components of a platform, so you can expect performance that is as close to native as possible. Strengthened by community-driven development, the React Native ecosystem hosts countless free libraries and tools for enhancing app functionalities.
It can lead to problems when complex animations are required because React Native’s bridge can lead to performance issues. The heavy use of third-party libraries could lead to problems like maintenance and compatibility, particularly after major updates in React.
Xamarin
What sets Xamarin apart is that it lets developers write apps using C#, which is supported by the .NET framework. This would likely attract many experienced .NET developers who are making their first steps into mobile app development. Xamarin provides a powerful reason to be interested in its tools: the ability to create apps for iOS, Android, and Windows using a single code base.
One of the central elements of Xamarin is Xamarin.Forms, an API for developing UI for multiple platforms from one code base, thus speeding up the development process. Unlike certain frameworks, Xamarin provides nearly 100% of the native platform’s API, making it a powerful ally for applications demanding deep device integration. The backing of Microsoft is considerable, and thus Xamarin enjoys perfect integration with Visual Studio IDE, making the development workflow even better.
Just like with any other cross-platform tool, apps created using Xamarin would have a larger size and longer launch time as compared to native applications. For companies that do not have Visual Studio enterprise subscriptions from Microsoft, licensing fees could be a major issue.
Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile (KMM)
Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile, backed by JetBrains, gives developers an amazing opportunity to manage the business logic of their iOS and Android applications from a single codebase. It’s essential to clarify that KMM is not a full cross-platform framework. It’s aimed at enabling code sharing across platforms where it is reasonable. Such sharing is especially relevant for logic layers as opposed to UI.
KMM champions Kotlin’s expressive syntax, safety, and performance while at the same time allowing for custom native UI development. The flexibility of KMM has also been praised by developers since it does not impose a particular style of user interface development—native UI components are allowed when necessary. The ability to integrate effortlessly into existing applications gives a significant boost to the efforts of porting an already built Android project to iOS
It’s still evolving, and some developers have reported occasional compatibility issues with specific components from different platforms. Not all development teams will find the complexity of cross-platform project tool setup appealing, especially if they aren’t very familiar with Kotlin, or if they lack Kotlin-related knowledge altogether.
NativeScript
NativeScript (maintained by Progress) has a distinctive feature—the creation of native iOS and Android applications using Angular, Vue.js, or plain JavaScript. This fusion of achieving native performance with well-known web frameworks is something uncommon, thus making it attractive to developers who have their roots in web technologies.
It abstracts native platform APIs in JavaScript, thus enabling developers to use native components. No browser plugins or WebView are necessary, guaranteeing performance comparable to native apps.NativeScript employs an architecture called the native development cycle, that allows the sharing of code between mobile and web applications and leads to the maximal re-use of code and the faster completion of projects.
Because of its unique abstraction model, developers may face a harder time learning complex applications that require deep device integration. Community and third-party support, although expanding, is not as comprehensive as with other frameworks, which may lead to more time being spent on learning and debugging issues.
Ionic
Ionic provides a library of components optimized for mobile and desktop applications that are interactive and built using well-known web technology stacks such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With further extensibility via integration with Angular, React, and Vue, Ionic allows choosing a framework that better plays to each developer’s strengths.
A major reason for the success of Ionic is its use of web views aimed at imitating native styles and concepts, which allows for the smooth sharing of a project codebase across mobile and web environments. Like Xamarin, it is great for rapid prototyping and applications that do not require particularly high-performance native features. Because of its dependence on WebView, Ionic cannot achieve the same levels of performance as truly native applications. The Ionic framework expands what one can do by supporting access to native functionality through plugins.
One limitation developers may face with the web-centric nature of the framework is the potential loss of performance and user experience on resource-constrained devices. There is a vibrant community, but the reliance on multiple plugins for native functionalities might create challenges for developers in terms of maintaining the software and ensuring cross-version compatibility, especially when updates are released.