Plus, in a world where you can build an app in minutes, you really have no excuse not to create one.
However, there are so many mobile app development tools out there today it can make your head spin. How do you know which one to use? How do you avoid paying too much for tools you simply don’t need? Do you need to become a developer to use them?
Don’t worry – I have you covered. In this post, I’ll give you a detailed comparison of the best mobile app dev tools and which ones are right for your app and budget.
Key Takeaways
Importance of Mobile Apps: With 95% of Americans owning a mobile device, having a mobile app is crucial for businesses.
Variety of Tools: There are numerous mobile app development tools available, making it essential to choose the right one for your needs.
Cost Efficiency: It’s important to avoid overspending on unnecessary tools.
Developer Skills: Not all tools require you to be a developer to use them effectively.
Open Source Benefits: Open source tools can save costs but may have a steeper learning curve.
Before we talk mobile app dev tools, we need to understand what a mobile application really is.
A mobile application, commonly referred to as an app, is a type of application software designed to run on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet.
Mobile applications provide users with similar services to those accessed on PCs, such as online banking, accessing email, or viewing their calendar. Apps are usually small software with limited function, designed for a very specific purpose.
Mobile applications are also sometimes referred to as Web apps (although they aren’t actually the same thing), online apps, iPhone apps or smartphone apps.
I asked Michael Facemire, an app developer for Forrester Research, what his take on mobile application development tools was. He had this to say:
“Mobile app dev tools are like paint brushes for an artist – they all come down to personal preference. Personally, I use some of the most well-known, like Android Studio, because they help me develop apps quickly.”
Now that you understand exactly what a mobile app is, what are the best tools to develop a mobile application? Let’s find out:
Mobile App Development Tools That Are Open Source
Open source mobile application development tools can be a boon to mobile app developers due to their free (and, obviously, open source) nature.
“I’m a big believer in prototyping and early validation. Before diving into development, I highly recommend sketching your app idea on the paper and iterating it until your target audience gets it. Prototyping on Paper is a great choice that can save you hours of development work later. If you set clear goals, you can go from idea to functioning prototype in one day.”
The setback of open source, however, often includes a steeper learning curve than some of their paid counterparts. If you have the time to learn them, it may be worth saving the extra dollars.
Here are some open source mobile app dev tools you can choose from:
Buildfire.js is a cross platform library used to build custom functionality in Buildfire’s platform. It allows unlimited customization with nothing but JavaScript, making it one of the simplest to implement frameworks. Leveraging the existing functionality of the Buildfire platform Buildfire.js gives mobile app developers the ability to shortcut 80% of the app development process by leveraging any of the 45+ open source plugins that exist and simply focus on the custom functionality that is required. Read more here.
Framework 7 used to be iOS only, but now offers Android support as well. If you want to develop an app that looks and feels like a clean iOS app even on Android, Framework 7 is for you.
It’s also very easy to understand, as long as you already have a decent knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Some of the features of Framework 7 include Material Design UI, a custom DOM library, 1:1 page animation, native scrolling, and XHR caching and preloading.
What are the best mobile app development tools for beginners?
For beginners, tools like Buildfire offer user-friendly interfaces and templates that simplify the app development process without requiring extensive coding knowledge.
How can I develop a mobile app without coding?
Platforms like Buildfire allow businesses to create mobile apps without any coding by using drag-and-drop features and pre-built templates.
What is the cost of developing a mobile app?
The cost of developing a mobile app varies widely depending on the complexity and features. Using platforms like Buildfire can help reduce costs by providing affordable development solutions.
Which mobile app development tools support cross-platform development?
Tools such as Ionic and Framework 7 support cross-platform development, allowing you to create apps for both iOS and Android from a single codebase.
What are the advantages of using open source mobile app development tools?
Open source tools are cost-effective and offer flexibility, but they may require more technical expertise to implement effectively.
The Ionic Framework is based on the Sass CSS language. It’s also cross-platform, meaning it can run on multiple operating systems. It’s pretty easy to use and can also be integrated with AngularJS to build more advanced apps.
Ionic also has a library of mobile-optimized HTML, CSS, and JS CSS components, tools and gestures, and works with predefined components. A command-line interface provides features like logging, emulators, and live reload.We use Ionic and Apache Cordova to power our iPhone/Android mobile apps. Basically, Ionic handles all the UI components to make the app feel and look like a real iPhone app or real Android app, but it’s actually all built with HTML/CSS/JS (Angular). Apache Cordova is the layer that’s exposed to developers to interact with the native phone APIs (e.g. to trigger a sound, vibrate command, etc.) in a generic way that works with multiple platforms.
Platform
Development Time
Code Sharing
iPhone
Nearly three months
—
Android
Only nine days
Shared virtually all of the exact same code
From a programming perspective, we didn’t need to hire developers with specialized mobile skillsets; it was very easy to use a web developer to build both apps. They have significant backing (so you don’t have to worry about them shutting down) and their documentation is great.
Over half of all mobile websites are currently using jQuery mobile. It’s one of the oldest app dev tools out there, and has more functionality than most. It’s been called the “swiss army knife of mobile app dev tools”.
While jQuery brings all the well known JavaScript features to the table, the ‘Mobile’ part of the upgrade is mostly responsible for CSS and HTML. While it lacks native-like functionality or advanced UI, it makes up for this by being as close as possible to the “write once, run everywhere” dream.
Cross Platform & Hybrid Mobile App Development Tools
There may be times when you need cross platform support with the speed of hybrid development so you can support multiple mobile platforms without developing multiple code bases.
But, before we get into them, Jason Kneen, a freelance cross-platform native app developer at BouncingFish, has some advice:
“For the past 6 years I’ve been working with Appcelerator’s Titanium SDK, building native cross-platform app development for iOS, Android and Windows.
Titanium was the first development platform that enabled developers to build native applications in JavaScript.
The Alloy MVC framework is great; I find I can build MVPs and full-blown apps quickly and share over 90% of the code between iOS and other platforms.
For me, the choice is native over hybrid apps (where the app is basically a local website running in a native wrapper).
With the Appcelerator Platform, they’ve added Hyperloop (the ability to access 100% of the underlying SDK from JavaScript), and the Arrow Cloud Services and ArrowDB, making it easy to create and deploy scalable and flexible API services.
All this plus being able to share over 90% of your code means you can go from zero to app faster, with less code, using fewer developers – making it cost-effective.”
Here’s a list of cross platform supporting hybrid mobile app development tools to choose from:
Buildfire is one of few high performance do-it-yourself mobile app builders that supports Android and iOS phones as well as tablets. Buildfire can shorten the time to launch by months or even years with pre-built functionality in the form of:
Mobile angular UI is a free hybrid mobile app development tool which allows you to build HTML5 Mobile Apps with Bootstrap and Angular JS. It’s very similar to Sencha Touch and jQuery Mobile.
It also provides switches, overlays, sidebars, scrollable areas, and absolute positioned top and bottom navbars that don’t bounce on scroll, and makes for easy mobile to desktop and back transition. The only drawback is the documentation isn’t quite up to par, but they’re working on updating it.
If you’re a Salesforce developer, Salesforce1 is for you. Regardless of your skill level, you should be able to find good options for building mobile apps based on your Salesforce site. It’s easily customizable with just a few clicks.
Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned software company. With C# codebase, you can develop Android, iOS and Windows apps. One of Xamarin’s best features is that it allows code sharing in multiple platforms (aka cross platform mobile app development). Xamarin also has a cloud service, which allows you to test on any number of mobile devices.
Mag+ is a nifty app SDK which allows developers to build on top of their core components, saving loads of hours of coding. They also have an iPad app which provides a fast and simple publishing platform for creating mobile-optimized content, no code required.
Xojo is an app development tool for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, x86 Linux, iOS, Raspberry Pi, and the web. They also allow you to create native apps and provide Xojo Cloud for easy, secure, and maintenance-free web app hosting.
Corona Labs supports all major platforms, including Android, iOS, and Windows. While their app dev tool is specially made for building 2D graphics games and educational apps, it can also be used for developing other 2D apps.
The price of Corona Labs is $79 to $199 per month, although they do have a free version.
Cocos2D is another 2D app builder that allows you to publish from a single code base to mobile, desktop, web, and console. You can also write in cocos2d-objc, cocos2d-x (which uses C++), cocos2d-JS (which uses JavaScript), cocos2d-XNA (which uses C#), cocos2d- swift (which uses objective C), and more.
Unity is one of the most well-known game development platforms. You can use it to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across multiple platforms, and even build AR/VR apps!
IntelliJDEA’s goal is to make development an enjoyable experience. They have features like in-depth coding assistance, quick navigation, clever error analysis, and refactorings.
While mentioned above, I also placed Corona Labs here because it’s an excellent tool for developing Android apps and games.
Mobile App Development tools With No Coding Needed
If you don’t know code, you can still develop a mobile app! There are more and more drag-and-drop builders being created every single day. Here are our favorites:
Corona Labs is also excellent for designing windows mobile apps, as mentioned above.
The Bottom Line
The mobile app market is flooded tools to create mobile apps. There are mobile app tools for Android app development, web technologies, cross platform apps, progressive web apps, and more. If you run a quick Google search, you’ll quickly learn that there are more mobile app development tools out today than you can even count. They vary in price, complexity, usability, and a million other ways.
I hope you’ve found a great app development tool for your business somewhere in this guide. That said, sometimes developing an app – even using a simple drag-and-drop editor – can still be too time-consuming or too confusing.
Once your app is built, don’t forget to focus on promotional strategies like creating a unique app icon.
