Top 5 Tools for Mobile App Development in 2021

Why is it important to select the best tool?

Mobile App Management can be easier to create but hard to maintain. With lots of advancement in Technology, there are hundreds of tools available for mobile app development for both iOS and Android. However, it is really important to select the best tool when you are going to develop an app for your business — since you will run this application for many years, you need to analyse multiple items like license costs, support and developer community support behind every tool, Open Source vs Enterprise tools etc.

Top 5 Tools in Mobile Application Development

1. Xcode

Xcode is the IDE for Mac and iOS. If you are building Apps for the Apple Ecosystem, Xcode is going to be your first choice. Apple provides Xcode free of use for all macOS users. However, if you need to distribute apps via the App Store, you may need to buy an Apple Developer Program subscription ($99/year).

Pricing: Free  |  developer.apple.com/xcode

2. Android Studio

As the name suggests, this tool is built specifically for Android — originally developed by Google. It has lots of drag-and-drop features which can make your life easier.

Pricing: Free  |  developer.android.com/studio

3. Xamarin

Xamarin is another application development platform intended for native iOS, Android, and Windows applications which uses a .NET codebase for all types of platforms. It utilizes Visual Studio tools. You can use Xamarin with free credits from Microsoft Azure.

Pricing: $25/mo  |  Free trial: Yes  |  visualstudio.microsoft.com/xamarin

4. Ionic

Ionic is an open-source SDK for hybrid Mobile App development. It is built on top of AngularJS and Apache Cordova. Ionic utilizes front-end technologies — HTML, CSS, Angular, and JavaScript.

Pricing: Free  |  ionicframework.com

5. React Native

Originally built by the Facebook developer community, React Native is also widely used for mobile app development. You can use it to develop all kinds of apps — Android, iOS, macOS, tvOS, Web, and Windows using the React framework.

Pricing: Free  |  reactnative.dev