Mobile App Development Software
Top Rated Mobile App Development Products
These products won a Top Rated award for having excellent customer satisfaction ratings. The list is based purely on reviews; there is no paid placement, and analyst opinions do not influence the rankings. Read more about the Top Rated criteria.
Mobile App Development Software TrustMap
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Mobile App Development Software Overview
What is Mobile App Development Software?
Mobile app development software includes a wide variety of tools for building, converting, and deploying cross-platform applications for mobile devices.
Businesses often create mobile applications for sale and for internal use. They may also port existing desktop applications to mobile devices. Due to differences in operating systems, hardware capabilities, and UX design, developing or porting a mobile application presents unique challenges. As a result, many vendors have created tools and services designed to assist mobile application developers.
Mobile app development software entails several different types of tools. Low-code development platforms and integrated development environments (IDEs) help developers quickly design, prototype, and launch mobile applications. Conversion tools help developers create mobile-friendly versions of existing applications and websites. Other tools and libraries provide APIs for adding features such as messaging, file sharing, or mapping to mobile applications.
Mobile app development tools are designed to create cross-platform applications that function on different mobile operating systems. Many IDEs, development platforms, and deployment services are capable of creating multiple operating-system-specific builds from a single application. Other tools and libraries are either platform-agnostic or provide functions for multiple operating systems.
Features & Capabilities
- App analytics
- Authentication, authorization, encryption, and device management
- Connection to SQL and no-SQL databases
- Front-end and back-end support for enterprise offerings
- GPS system integrations
- Offline app versions
- Photo & video integrations
- Publishing to App Stores (Google Play, Apple App Store, etc.)
- Push notifications
- Social media integrations
- Translation for multi-lingual app versions
- Update and feature-drop scheduling
Mobile app development software may include the following types of capabilities:
IDEs
Low-code and no-code development platforms
Mobile conversion/migration tools
Development libraries and SDKs
Content management systems
Collaboration tools
Mobile App Development Software Comparison
To compare different mobile app development software, consider these factors for each product offering:
Really consider the platform features you need: Mobile app development software must support important features like access controls, deployments to app stores, data synchronization, and scalability. Other features may depend on what your particular development team values for creating a quality app such as authentication, notifications, storage/databases, and automated IT tasks. Lastly, you will want to consider any integrations with third-party services you find to be a crucial part of your development process.
Supported Operating Systems: The majority of mobile devices run on Android systems, but you should strongly consider having your mobile apps deployed on both Android and Apple at a minimum. Additionally, if you plan on dividing and conquering with your team’s resources, consider Windows devices and Blackberry as well. Most mobile app development software offerings support both Android and Apple devices, but if you’re looking to launch your app to Windows devices as well, be sure the tools you are considering can actually help you do so.
Hybrid vs native (vs web): As you know, you have the choice to create native, hybrid, or even web-based mobile apps. It’s a crucial decision you have to make before you begin your software development, because certain mobile app development platforms excel at one kind of app over the other.
Native apps are those that use features that are embedded in a mobile device, such as a camera or a GPS system. Web applications are those that are developed for use in an internet browser, albeit optimized for mobile use. Hybrid apps are a mix of both cloud and native apps.
One advantage native apps have on web apps is their heightened security. However, web apps are much more flexible and easier to design. Hybrid apps make use of both of these advantages and balance out the cons of going one way or the other completely.
Pricing Information
Pricing for mobile app development tools varies greatly varies due to the broad scope of included products. Some mobile app development tools are open-source and free, and vendors often offer free trials or free versions of paid software.
Pricing for paid software can vary from under $13.00 monthly for minor services to over $12,000.00 monthly for an enterprise license of a major service.
Mobile App Development Products
(1-25 of 80) Sorted by Most Reviews
The OutSystems Platform is a Platform-as-a-Service solution for rapid delivery of responsive web and mobile applications. It includes functionalities required to develop, deploy, manage and change web and mobile applications. It is targeted at the delivery of enterprise applications…
Key Features
- Drag-and-drop Interfaces (45)88%8.8
- Visual Modeling (45)84%8.4
- Reusability (47)69%6.9
Mendix is a low code platform-as-a-service offering with mobile and social extensions. Mendix was acquired by Siemens August 2018.
Zeplin
Zeplin, from the company of the same name, is a platform supporting collaboration in application development by engineers and designers by providing an API with popular collaboration, development and prototyping tools and creating a space where productions can be shared and reviewed.…
Google offers the Firebase suite of application development tools, available free or at cost for higher degree of usages, priced flexibly accorded to features needed. The suite includes A/B testing and Crashlytics, Cloud Messaging (FCM) and in-app messaging, cloud storage and NoSQL…
Android Studio is an official Android development integrated development environment (IDE) for mobile application development in the Android operating system developed by Google. Android Studio is based on Jetbrains' IntelliJ IDEA IDE.
AWS IoT Core is a managed cloud service that lets connected devices interact with cloud applications and other devices. It includes the Device Gateway and the Message Broker, which connect and process messages between IoT devices and the cloud. AWS IoT Core connects AWS and Amazon…
WompMobile enables any website to be converted to a mobile-friendly format without the need to redesign or change the desktop site. It is a turn-key mobile development solution, meaning no IT involvement is required. This solution uses a proprietary JavaScript-adaptive platform. The…
The Alpha platform is a unified mobile and web app development and deployment environment with distinct "no-code" and "low-code" components. The vendor says that using the Alpha TransForm no-code environment, business users and developers can take full advantage of all the capabilities…
When maintaining a large project, from time to time people leave the project and it becomes increasingly difficult to replace them. Fast forward 5 years and knowledgeable Objective-C programmers will be a scarce resource [source Reddit]. Why Swiftify? Automate converting your iOS…
Syncfusion’s Essential Studio Enterprise Edition is a suite of 1,600+ software components and frameworks for developing web, mobile, and desktop applications. Its UI controls are designed to be flexible, optimized for high performance. The vendor states it is relied on by 80% of…
The ServiceNow Now Platform is a digital workflow building and extension tool for ServiceNow featuring a number of low-code / no code tools.
MicroStrategy Mobile enables users to bring analytics, transactions, mapping, multimedia, and business workflows to life in custom mobile apps, personalized for any industry or any role. Users can convert any information system or web application into a user-friendly, highly-performant…
Webix is a multi-widget JavaScript UI library for developing HTML5 and CSS3 compatible mobile and desktop web apps. It provides over 90 feature rich UI widgets for data management, visualization, uploading, building layouts and editing.Using these components you can build web apps…
The SAP Extension Suite (formerly known as part of SAP Cloud Platform) enables businesses to rapidly build and enhance applications, processes and experiences. The suite helps businesses be agile and flexible while extending the value of their applications. Simplify cloud application…
Temenos Quantum is a mobile app development tool based on technology acquired by Temenos with Kony and the Kony development platform in late 2019. They state with it, businesses can deliver a multiexperience digital journey for customers. The platform supports the development of…
