Android has topped the list of best-operating systems for developing mobile apps for many years now. As of now, there are hundreds of android tools, frameworks, technologies, and much more compared to others.
Globally, over 85% of market shares have been captured by Android, and with such outreach, it is projected to grow even higher in 2022. With significant growth in android users, the android mobile app development community has also developed quite far and wide along with its ecosystem.
Nowadays, we all know that mobile applications have become interactive, sophisticated, and user-friendly in more ways than we can imagine. Being a highly customizable platform, Android is preferred by developers worldwide.
Android frameworks allow you have access to libraries, extensive help documentation, and best practices – all at your fingertips. With so many enhanced features, android app developers are often in a dilemma about which android app development platform to choose, as there are so many.
We have enlisted a few of the top android app development frameworks that will help you to understand more about which framework offers what functionalities:
Top 5 Android App Development Frameworks
Ionic Android Framework
Since founded in 2012, Ionic has been one of the most popular cross-platform development frameworks. It is because Ionic is a free and open-source framework that has been certified by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Modern web technologies such as CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript can also be used, which most developers nowadays prefer.
Using the Ionic development framework, developers can build interactive and hybrid apps. You can find animation, gestures, software tools, and element sets that allow you to create high-end mobile and desktop apps from a single codebase. Moreover, Ionic also lets other libraries like Cordova and AngularJS integrate easily.
PhoneGap
Backed by Apache and Adobe, PhoneGap is also an open-source framework allowing modern web development technologies, including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, to build apps. Not just Android but other operating systems can also leverage PhoneGap and create mobile apps. One of the prime reasons developers use PhoneGap is that while using this framework, developers can simultaneously view and check modifications while they work on the app.
Third-party software tools, a plug-in library, and a growing community are vital among many extended functionalities. Not just that, it allows working without having any hardware-specific limitations.
Flutter
Flutter is owned by Google and is rapidly climbing towards being the most-used framework after React Native. It was released in 2017 and is also an open-source development framework. Flutter is written in the Dart programming language, which Google also develops. It is currently used by international companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, and Google.
Flutter is the best choice for hybrid app development because, through one codebase, the application compiles the native code while using Skia – Google's 2D rendering. Developers can build, test as well as deploy mobile, web, embedded and desktop apps from single codebase using Flutter. Also, features such as a screen reader, rendering, rapid development, and themes for both Android and iOS make it such a popular framework.
React Native Android Framework
With more than 68k+ stars on Github, React native is one of the fastest-growing open-source platforms. It was released in 2015 and backed by none other than social media giant Facebook. React Native is based on React – a huge JS library that allows developers to build cross-platform mobile apps. Such functionalities let developers write the code once and then execute it elsewhere, making it a quick, time-saving, and cost-efficient framework.
React native offers built-in UI components and native API access through which developers can build an elegant app with outstanding performance. It also has a unique hot-reload feature that lets developers update files without disturbing the present state of the app. Some popular apps built using React Native are Instagram, Tesla, Airbnb, Amazon Prime, Skype, Etc.
Xamarin Framework
Xamarin was founded in 2011 and it is owned by popular company Microsoft. Being one of the oldest app development frameworks, it offers many functionalities. It is also an open-source platform to build apps through an ecosystem with API, back-end, components; Etc. Xamarin is based on .Net and supports various libraries, tools, and programming languages. Using this framework, developers can develop apps for Android, Windows, tvOS, watchOS, macOS, and iOS.
It is a widely used app development framework with versatile back-end infrastructure and a strong community of more than 60k contributors. Some features such as application loader, android SDK manager, storyboard files, and diagnostic tools are more popular. Xamarin would be best suited for developers who share their code and test business logic over multiple platforms. Some of the apps built using Xamarin are Pinterest, The World Bank, MRW, Storyo, Siemens, Etc.
Conclusion
Still, confused about which android app development framework to start with? We are here to assist you through every step. The One Technologies is a leading android app development company, and we will help you choose the most attainable framework and tools required. We have the knowledge and experience to satisfy your business's unique needs. We offer the most feasible solutions for android app development with a particular project in mind.
