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Read this blog to know about 5 best cross-platform mobile app development tools. But before we go ahead with that, let’s understand why we need a mobile app in the first place. And then, why particularly cross-platform mobile apps.

Since more and more people are now preferring smartphones over PCs to access the Internet, having only a website to grow your business is no longer enough. However, building a native app for each mobile platform is also very time consuming and expensive. Besides, you need to write separate source codes for individual mobile platforms and you can actually reuse a very little of the code that’s already been written.

So, developers now think that it’s a good idea to go for cross-platform mobile app development or progressive web apps. For simple reasons, it makes your mobile app compatible with multiple mobile operating systems and enables to reuse the code that’s already been written. Besides, it involves low maintenance cost since you need not offer support for multiple mobile platforms.

Now that we know about the virtues of cross-platform mobile app development, it’s paramount you know about the most effective and easy-to-use cross-platform mobile app development tools. So, let’s move on to the most important part of this blog.

5 Best Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Tools

#PhoneGap

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The reason why PhoneGap, aka Apache Cordova, has gained immense popularity among developers is the ease of building cross-platform mobile apps. No extra skills are required, your own development team is well capable of using it. This framework involves the use of standard web technologies such as HTML5, Java and CSS3 for building a cross-platform mobile app.

Key Features of PhoneGap are as Follows:

• Easy to use and comes packed with many libraries

• Apps work uniformly well on multiple platforms

• Robust backend system increases the speed of app development

• Offers support for various application programming interfaces

• Since PhoneGap is open source, it comes for free

• PhoneGap based apps are easy to manage

• PhoneGap apps sport top-notch UI and enable seamless navigation

• Easy distribution and installation

#Sencha

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Sencha, a tool to develop cross-platform mobile apps in HTML5, is known as a time-saving tool in the custom mobile app development space. It also gives rise to high productivity. Besides, Sencha allows access to Sencha Architect, Sencha IDE Plugins and few others to further ease the process of cross-platform app development. However, Sencha Ext JS 6 continues to enjoy the most widespread usage.

Once you make the HTML code ready using Sencha, the next step is to convert it to both Android and iOS. For conversion into Android and iOS, you can use a translational tool like PhoneGap.

#Xamarin

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Xamarin is a brilliant tool to use for building custom apps for iOS, Windows and Android smartphones. Xamarin requires developers to use the C# programming language to develop robust cross-platform mobile apps. The language runs on the .NET Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). Xamarin is popularly regarded as “write once, run anywhere” tool.

Native API access and sharing code compatibility add to the effectiveness of Xamarin. Xamarin has recently partnered with IBM, Xoriant and Microsoft. Xamarin 2, which entered the tech market last year, is one of the most used cross platform app development tools.

#Unity3D

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Unity 3D engine is a very popular tool for developing 3D games. Unity supports three programming languages: C#, JavaScript and Boo. Unity game developers can access millions of ready-made assets in the Asset Store and seek help from a very large and active online community. They can add awe-inspiring graphics to video games using Unity3D. Besides, the game engine significantly reduces both development time and cost.

Unity 3D offers a single integrated development environment for all platforms. Developers can easily learn how to use Unity3D through numerous video tutorials offered by the company.

#Cocos2d

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Cocos2d is also a popular tool for gaming apps and other interactive programs. However, unlike Unity 3D which can be used for both 2D and 3D game development, Cocos2d allows development of only 2D games. Developers can use any language among Javascript, C#, Xcode & Objective C, Python, and C++ to develop a 2D game using Cocos2d.

Cocos is open source, therefore does not cost anything. With Cocos2d, you can build games for multiple mobile platforms using the same code base and making a few platform-specific adaptations for each one.

Cross-platform mobile app development is becoming popular due to low cost, high productivity and no headache of maintaining mobile apps for multiple platforms. Though, cross-platform apps do not completely eliminate native apps. Performance of native apps is better than cross-platform mobile apps as they are specifically made for individual mobile operating systems, however, technology advancements will only make cross-platforms more common in the future.