Taking your business towards Android app development is not difficult, but choosing the proper Android app development framework is. Undoubtedly mobile phones have become a necessity for our life now. Spending a day without smartphones seems like spending a day without any purpose for everyone, no matter their age and gender. But, the main question […]
Updated 5 December 2023
CTO at Appventurez
Taking your business towards Android app development is not difficult, but choosing the proper Android app development framework is.
Undoubtedly mobile phones have become a necessity for our life now. Spending a day without smartphones seems like spending a day without any purpose for everyone, no matter their age and gender. But, the main question is, “What makes mobile phones so fascinating and interesting?” The Answer is Mobile Applications!
No one can’t overlook that smartphones are valuable just because of many great apps. Everything that enriches our daily lives has been digitized via mobile applications, from ordering food and online shopping to dating and fitness checking. So, we won’t be wrong in saying that user-friendly and high-performance apps have made everyone’s life easier and faster.
According to Statista, over 2 million applications were available on the Google Play Store in 2020, and this number is only continuing to grow. That’s why many companies’ owners – whether a startup or established – include mobile apps in their marketing strategies. After all, mobile applications are essential to their brand experiences as they provide a wide array of engagement opportunities.
To build these apps, developers use frameworks that add usability, make the apps secure, and enable fast development. If you are looking for a framework to develop customized applications, Android is the best platform. But why? This is because the market share of Android app development is expected to skyrocket to over 87% by 2022. Not only limited to smartphones, but it is ready to take over tablets, desktops, home appliances, and vehicles.
But, the main question is,
An Android application development framework is a software toolkit that lets developers build a finished product that meets its owner’s needs. The proper framework provides the bones of an app to be flashed out with excellent graphics, unique features, and high functionality. This framework is designed to simplify application development and make it easy to manage, change, and fix bugs down the road.
As the market is flooded with many frameworks, it is challenging to find one that stands apart and meets your needs. So,
When it comes to staying ahead of the curve these days, selecting the right Android framework for mobile application development plays a vital role. And with a bit of thought and thinking in advance like speed consideration, costs, smoothness, updates, and efficiency, you can easily find the right one for your mobile app development.
Here Are Some Features You Need to Consider to Sort The Sheep From The Goats.
One of the main features you need to look for when choosing the right framework for Android app development is cross-platform capability. Cross-platform frameworks allow developers to build an application with the same look, feel, and user experience on any device. Besides, if you are mainly interested in developing an Android app, using a framework to help different platforms save time and money down the road.
Ensure you hire an experienced Android app developer who knows how to work with technologies that facilitate the creative process. They can also test, troubleshoot, and fix bugs in the least complicated and the most time-efficient ways.
As applications become more sophisticated and complicated, tailoring frameworks to get the best user experience for every project is essential to high-end app development.
If you are still unable to choose the right Android framework for application development due to the different options available, here is a comprehensive list of the best Android app development frameworks to lend you a helping hand.
Before starting about it, you need to know about top Android frameworks by their capability. Let’s have a closer look at the best frameworks for Android app development and their features, pros, cons, and examples.
Unity is ideal for developing multi-platform 2D, 3D, AR, and VR games and AI-driven applications as the best Android app development framework. This framework comes in free and professional editions. Similar to JavaScript, you can efficiently work with Unity in C# and UnityScript. Besides, this framework lets developers expand their game to different platforms like iOS, Windows, Web, and Xbox. In simple words, if you need a game app development framework for interactive experiences, Utility is the best choice! Also, you need an ultimate game app development unity guide.
With the Unity framework, UI design is relatively simple. It means that you can easily drag and drop design elements and switch to code when required.
Unity allows developers to build both 2D and 3D games with exceptionally great-looking graphics and animation. In addition, it supports AR/VR, while this framework also integrates with third-party tools and services for developing Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality games.
This framework uses Microsoft Visual Studio because of its defective integrated development environment. The default coding languages are C# and UnityScript.
Unity framework lets you launch multiple web stores. All in all, this game application development tool supports over 25 different platforms, apart from Android and iOS.
One of the most important pros of using Unity is a strong support community across the web. This framework also has excellent, full-functional technical support to help you become proficient in game development.
As Unity has various features, a quick look at its interface can make you feel overwhelmed. For example, you can use 3D graphics in your 2D project for a sleek and modern look. Developing 3D objects is also relatively easy, but combining them into more complicated ones.
If you are looking for a simple drag-and-drop tool, the Unity framework can disappoint you. To build something awe-inspiring with Unity 3D, you will need a good working knowledge of C#.
Unity 3D has some excellent features when it comes to mobile game app development. However, the documentation for them is whether outdated or nonexistent. For that, you need to search the website or ask the community of Unity developers for tips.
While Microsoft Visual Studio usually works well, it may often request login and registration confirmation in the middle of the development process. This may hamper the development and often feels frustrating.
There was a time when Java used to be a go-to programming language for developers interested in high-performance android development. Due to the steep learning curve of Java, Kotlin has become a famous programming language for high-performance Android mobile application development. But what makes Kotlin more attractive for Android development? The Answer is less code, faster development, and interoperability with Java.
What’s more, Kotlin uses the JVM (Java Virtual Machine), and its code runs in the same way as JAVA. The compiler will generate bytecode – A set of instructions that JVM executes. That’s the main reason seasoned Java fans are switching to Kotlin as soon as it was launched.
If you are looking for an Android app development framework that will increase your productivity, Kotlin is the right choice! It lets you express your ideas and reduce the amount of standard code.
Kotlin has many languages to help you avoid common programming mistakes, such as null pointer exceptions. Android applications that include Kotlin code are 20% less likely to crash.
One of the best things about Kotlin is 100% interoperable with Java. This means both Kotlin and Java generate the same bytecode, so there is no fear that you are delivering something different from Kotlin.
Since its launching, Kotlin has built continuously as a language and as a whole ecosystem with a robust framework. Now, it is seamlessly integrated into Android Studio, and even many companies are using this tool for Android app development.
Kotlin works faster than Java, especially in cases of conducting incredible developments. This fast speed may not give a cleanly functional app. Hence, Java stands as a clear winner for developing tremendous and bug-free applications.
The number of developers who are switching to the Kotlin framework is increasing. However, a limited amount of resources to learn and solve quarries in the development process is the main drawback of this framework.
While Kotlin is highly popular in the Android developer’s community, few programmers are available for this tool. The fact about this application development tool is that it requires in-depth knowledge, but nowadays, it is challenging to find an expert in the domain of Kotlin.
React Native is a sought-after Android framework for Native application development. Even Google trends show that this framework has been gaining more popularity in the past few years. As of today, thousands of developers have used Reactive Native. This framework is a perfect choice for those looking for a mobile application that needs a custom design. Besides, it is perfect for apps that require a shorter time-to-market and reduce production costs.
React Native has access to a plethora of libraries and tools. So, it offers an accelerated software development process, resulting in increased productivity of developers.
Mobile apps built using React Native are cost-effective as they save time and money. After all, there is only a single codebase required to develop apps for multiple platforms.
React Native can develop apps for multiple platforms with the same codebase, ensuring faster development. And even it shares the codebase for Android, iOS, and the web.
One of the main drawbacks of using React Native is that it is not a Native solution. It is a cross-platform app development framework. To give it a Native feel, you need to create a communication between the Native and JavaScript.
With React Native, your developers might come across different compatibility and debugging issues. If your programmers don’t have great experience in this framework, it might negatively impact your development as they spend time troubleshooting.
No need to mention that Google constantly introduces new features with updates to its Operating systems. When it comes to bringing new functionality to the platform, the React Native team does its best, but it takes time. It is essential to create native bridges if you want to use some unique features like Face ID in your application.
Xamarin is a tool used for building cross-platform yet native apps for Android and Windows. This framework uses .NET and C# and shares 90% of the code on other platforms for developing intuitive and engaging apps. It offers faster development of mobile apps across all platforms due to a single codebase. If you want to give your app a native look and feel, go with Xamarin. In addition, it helps to reduce the app development costs. Reusable codes, efficient framework, app maintenance, and reduced market time are the main tips on how Xamarin helps reduce app development costs.
The performance of Xamarin is continuously improved to match the native development standards. So, this framework is considered Native.
The use of platform-specific UI design elements allows Xamarin to offer a great user experience.
Being a cross-platform app development framework, Xamarin is easy to maintain and update. Also, it eases the deployment of changes and updates for both Android and iOS applications.
Right off the bat, price is the first drawback of the Xamarin app development framework. It is accessible to individuals and small companies. But if you are an enterprise owner, you need to purchase Microsoft’s Visual Studio license.
Because of their underlying frameworks when comparing them to their native counterparts, the Xamarin apps are larger.
This framework is not suitable for mobile apps with heavy graphics. Every operating system has a different methodology for visually laying out screens.
The ionic framework makes hybrid app development more accessible. If you are looking for faster development of your business application, Ionic is best suited! This framework has a vast library of tools and consists of the latest components.
Ionic offers a wide range of plugins and UI design components to increase expert productivity and reduce development time and cost.
Ionic has many native plugins that help developers to get access to native device APIs. It offers a great experience to app users for Android platforms.
Ionic proves beneficial for both developers and business owners to offer browser support. They don’t need any complicated IDEs but only browser web-views for developing app layout.
Developing applications with an Ionic framework means that you must consider both web and native app security problems.
While various native plug-ins are available with ionic development, it is tough to find stable native plug-ins. Choosing an unstable native plug-in can cause more trouble when developing the Ionic mobile app.
If you want to develop aesthetically pleasing mobile applications, Flutter is a great choice. Here is a little bit of an introduction to Flutter.
Flutter is an open-source UI framework built by Google. This framework is widely used for iOS and Android app development from a single codebase using Dart. Material designs, attractive animations, and intuitive widgets provide an interactive user experience for mobile users. However, the exciting thing about the Flutter development tools is that visual excitement doesn’t interfere with performance. Unlike many other app frameworks, the codes are written in Dart language, and the codes are reusing for upcoming tasks. Whether you want to build an app for Android or iOS or Windows, Flutter is the best framework! If you are planning to develop a reliable Flutter app, you first need to know about Flutter app development cost.
Flutter allows seeing the applied changes instantly without losing the current app state, thanks to its hot reload feature. It made Flutter app development several times faster due to enhanced development speed and decreased code development time.
One of the best pros of Flutter that makes it a more attractive framework among Android developers for app development is the quick learning curve. It has already a working development set up and takes less than 30 minutes to finish the installation process.
Beautiful native-like performance is one of the main reasons why Flutter won over so many hearts. This framework toolkit includes library components and widget required to recreate the Android look and feel when it comes to mobile app development.
Flutter functions are in alpha and beta testing as a new cross-platform app development framework and even doesn’t work correctly. Furthermore, it takes some time to develop the necessary tools, expand functionality, and develop the community.
Flutter apps currently have issues with autocomplete input fields. It is especially noticeable if you want to implement password extraction from third-party password managers.
As you can see that there are some top frameworks for different types of applications. While there are different types of frameworks available in the market for application development, native and hybrid frameworks are most popular among companies and developers. With this popularity, one question also pops up in the mind of developers “what to choose between Hybrid apps vs Native apps?” You can choose the right framework as per your applications’ requirements, and nature.
These are the best Android app development frameworks that you can choose as per your requirements in 2023. Whether you want a customized app or upgrade an existing one, Appventurez has the experience and knowledge to satisfy your unique needs. As a reliable mobile app development company, we choose the best Android frameworks with your specific project in mind to build your custom app from scratch. We test and retest the development process’ at every stage to ensure your app performs flawlessly. Apart from this, whether you are a fresher or experienced Android app developer, these frameworks will help you in app development. Besides, If you are interested in Android app development, have a look at the open positions here or similar! Appventurez is a great place that will open the door to success for dedicated and smart developers.
Contact us today and let our developers bring your vision to life.
CTO at Appventurez
CTO and Co-Founder at Appventurez, Sitaram Sharma has 10+ years of experience in providing world-class digital solutions. As a CTO, he brought his expertise ranging from product enhancements to advanced technological integrations, while focusing on the consistent growth of the team.
Posted : 23 March 2021
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