Mobile App Development

10 Best Free and Open Source Mobile Application Development Frameworks

Mobile application development is the process by which software is created for handheld devices. This article focuses on tools which help developers create applications for mobile phones. The purpose of application frameworks and libraries is to enable developers to spend their time on the creative and interesting part of development, alleviating the repetitive overhead associated with common development patterns.

A multiple mobile application framework is software that helps developers to create phone applications that are written as embedded dynamic websites and also make use of native phone capabilities.

The leading mobile platforms are Android and iOS. The platforms support application binaries as found on personal computers with code which executes in the native machine format of the processor. With the diversity of mobile platforms, the mobile developer needs help in creating and managing versions for different platforms. Step forward a mobile application framework that supports multiple mobile platforms, allowing developers to apply their skills to create native applications for multiple platforms.

These platforms have an integrated development environment (IDE) which offers tools to help developers write, test and deploy applications. Build beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase.

To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 10 high quality mobile application development frameworks that offer an excellent way to develop mobile apps. Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

Ratings chart

Click the links in the table below to learn more about each framework.

Mobile Application Development Frameworks
Ionic FrameworkSDK for hybrid mobile app development
FlutterUI toolkit for building natively compiled applications
React NativeMobile application framework
QuasarEnterprise-ready cross-platform VueJs framework
Framework7Mobile HTML framework for building iOS and Android apps
Apache CordovaMobile application development framework
NativeScriptDevelop mobile apps on Apple iOS and Android
DioxusReact-like library for building fast, portable, and beautiful user interfaces
Uno PlatformBuild single codebase native mobile, web, desktop and embedded apps
ZKAjax Web application framework

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