What is Xamarin and what are its top alternatives?
Top Alternatives to Xamarin
React Native
React Native enables you to build world-class application experiences on native platforms using a consistent developer experience based on JavaScript and React. The focus of React Native is on developer efficiency across all the platforms you care about - learn once, write anywhere. Facebook uses React Native in multiple production apps and will continue investing in React Native. ...
Ionic
Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript. ...
Flutter
Flutter is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android. ...
NativeScript
NativeScript enables developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Universal while sharing the application code across the platforms. When building the application UI, developers use our libraries, which abstract the differences between the native platforms. ...
PhoneGap
PhoneGap is a web platform that exposes native mobile device apis and data to JavaScript. PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova. PhoneGap allows you to use standard web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development, avoiding each mobile platforms' native development language. Applications execute within wrappers targeted to each platform, and rely on standards-compliant API bindings to access each device's sensors, data, and network status. ...
Swift
Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C. ...
Android Studio
Android Studio is a new Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. It provides new features and improvements over Eclipse ADT and will be the official Android IDE once it's ready. ...
Appcelerator
Appcelerator is the first mobile platform to combine the flexibility of open source development technologies with the power of cloud services. ...
Xamarin alternatives & related posts
- Learn once write everywhere196
- Cross platform158
- Javascript157
- Native ios components114
- Built by facebook65
- Easy to learn59
- Bridges me into ios development43
- No compile39
- It's just react38
- Declarative36
- Fast19
- Livereload12
- Virtual Dom11
- Insanely fast develop / test cycle10
- Backed by Facebook9
- Native android components8
- It is free and open source8
- Easy setup8
- Great community8
- Highly customizable7
- Awesome6
- Scalable6
- Great errors6
- Win win solution of hybrid app6
- Everything component6
- Not dependent on anything such as Angular5
- Simple5
- OTA update4
- Awesome, easy starting from scratch4
- As good as Native without any performance concerns3
- Easy to use3
- Many salary2
- Can be incrementally added to existing native apps2
- Hot reload2
- Over the air update (Flutter lacks)2
- 'It's just react'2
- Web development meets Mobile development2
- Ful0
- Nigger0
- Javascript22
- Built by facebook17
- Cant use CSS11
- Some compenents not truly native2
related React Native posts









I am starting to become a full-stack developer, by choosing and learning .NET Core for API Development, Angular CLI / React for UI Development, MongoDB for database, as it a NoSQL DB and Flutter / React Native for Mobile App Development. Using Postman, Markdown and Visual Studio Code for development.
















I'm working as one of the engineering leads in RunaHR. As our platform is a Saas, we thought It'd be good to have an API (We chose Ruby and Rails for this) and a SPA (built with React and Redux ) connected. We started the SPA with Create React App since It's pretty easy to start.
We use Jest as the testing framework and react-testing-library to test React components. In Rails we make tests using RSpec.
Our main database is PostgreSQL, but we also use MongoDB to store some type of data. We started to use Redis for cache and other time sensitive operations.
We have a couple of extra projects: One is an Employee app built with React Native and the other is an internal back office dashboard built with Next.js for the client and Python in the backend side.
Since we have different frontend apps we have found useful to have Bit to document visual components and utils in JavaScript.
Ionic
- Allows for rapid prototyping245
- Hybrid mobile225
- It's angularjs208
- Free183
- It's javascript, html, and css178
- Ui and theming108
- Great designs76
- Mv* pattern74
- Reuse frontend devs on mobile70
- Extensibility64
- Great community31
- Open source28
- Responsive design22
- Good cli20
- Angularjs-based13
- Beautifully designed13
- So easy to use13
- Widgets12
- Allows for rapid prototyping, hybrid mobile11
- Typescript11
- Quick prototyping, amazing community10
- Easy setup10
- Angular2 support8
- Fast, easy, free7
- Because of the productivity and easy for development7
- So much thought behind what developers actually need7
- Base on angular7
- Super fast, their dev team is amazingly passionate6
- Easy to use6
- It's Angular6
- UI is awesome4
- Hot deploy4
- Material design support using theme3
- Amazing support3
- It's the future3
- Angular3
- Allow for rapid prototyping3
- Easy setup, development and testing3
- Ionic creator3
- User Friendly2
- It's angular js2
- Complete package2
- Simple & Fast2
- Fastest growing mobile app framework2
- Best Support and Community2
- Material Design By Default2
- Cross platform2
- Documentation2
- Because I can use my existing web devloper skills2
- Removes 300ms delay in mobile browsers2
- 11
- Native access1
- Typescript support1
- Ionic conect codeigniter1
- Fast Prototyping1
- All Trending Stack1
- Not suitable for high performance or UI intensive apps20
- Not meant for game development15
- Not a native app1
related Ionic posts
Hi community, I am looking into how I should build my tech stack for a business/analytics platform. I am not very familiar with frontend development; when looking into cross-platform frameworks, I found a lot of options. What is the best cross-platform frontend framework to go with? I found Flutter interesting, but Ionic also looks promising? Thank you for the advice!
Which hybrid framework I should for my upcoming mobile application project?
Options: 1. Flutter 2. Ionic 3. React Native
- Hot Reload92
- Cross platform77
- Performance72
- Backed by Google63
- Compiled into Native Code53
- Open Source40
- Fast Prototyping36
- Expressive and Flexible UI34
- Fast Development34
- Single Codebase28
- Reactive Programming26
- Material Design18
- Widget-based15
- Dart15
- Target to Fuchsia15
- Great CLI Support11
- IOS + Android10
- Tooling9
- Debugging quickly7
- Easy to learn7
- Have built-in Material theme7
- Target to Android7
- You can use it as mobile, web, Server development7
- Support by multiple IDE: Android Studio, VS Code, XCode6
- Target to iOS6
- Easy Testing Support6
- Have built-in Cupertino theme5
- Good docs & sample code5
- Easy to Widget Test4
- Written by Dart, which is easy to read code4
- Easy to Unit Test4
- Community4
- Real platform free framework of the future3
- Need to learn Dart22
- Lack of community support9
- No 3D Graphics Engine Support8
- Lack of friendly documentation5
- Graphics programming4
- Lack of promotion2
- Https://iphtechnologies.com/difference-between-flutter1
related Flutter posts









I am starting to become a full-stack developer, by choosing and learning .NET Core for API Development, Angular CLI / React for UI Development, MongoDB for database, as it a NoSQL DB and Flutter / React Native for Mobile App Development. Using Postman, Markdown and Visual Studio Code for development.
I've been juggling with an app idea and am clueless about how to build it.
A little about the app:
- Social network type app ,
- Users can create different directories, in those directories post images and/or text that'll be shared on a public dashboard .
Directory creation is the main point of this app. Besides there'll be rooms(groups),chatting system, search operations similar to instagram,push notifications
I have two options:
- React Native, Python, AWS stack or
- Flutter, Go ( I don't know what stack or tools to use)
- Access to the entire native api73
- Support for native ios and android libraries46
- Support for javascript libraries45
- Angular 2.0 support45
- Native ux and performance43
- Typescript support36
- Backed up by google and telerik34
- Css support29
- Cross-platform declarative ui and code26
- Fully open source under apache 2.0 license24
- Vuejs support11
- 60fps performance8
- Powerful data visualization with native UI5
- VS Code integration5
- Cloud builds as part of Telerik PLatform4
- Angular, typescript and javascript support4
- No need for Mac to build iOS apps in Telerik Platform4
- Extended CLI support4
- On-device debugging3
- Extensibility3
- Truly Object-Oriented with Typescript3
- Easiest of all other frameworks3
- Backed by google3
- 0 day support for new OS updates3
- Publishing modules to NPM3
- Access to entire native api2
- VueJS support2
- Svelte support2
- Powerfull mobile services as part of Telerik Platform2
- Live reload2
- Native ui with angular2
- Easy to learn2
- Vue.js support out of the box2
- Vue support2
- It works with Angular1
- Easy to use, support for almost all npm packages1
- Very small app size1
- Write once, use anywhere1
- Compile to Apple/Google Stores via CloudCompiler1
- HMR via webpack1
- Code reuse with your website1
- Rich ecosystem1
- Has CSS ;-)1
- Playground1
- Hot Reload1
- Lack of promotion5
- Slower Performance compared to competitors1
related NativeScript posts
So, i am preparing to adopt NativeScript.
For years my hybrid projects used Apache Cordova.
"Let's avoid to maintain two teams and double the deliver velocity".
It was good for a few years, we had those september issues, (i.e. apple broke some backward compatibility) , but for the last years, things seems to be losing the grip faster.
Last breaking changes, for instance, seems to have a workaround, however that growing feeling that simple things can not rely on so fragile webviews keeps growing faster and faster.
I've tested nativescript not only on it's "helloworld", but also on how do they respond on issues.
I got tweed support. I opened an github issue and got answers on less than 10 hours (yes i did it on another timezone and very close to a weekend). I saw the faulty docs get corrected in two days.
The bad news is i only can adopt nativescript on newer projects, since there is no budget to revamp the current solutions.
The good news is i can keep coding on Vue.js , without vou router, but that's ok. I've already exchanged vanilla html for real native app with background magic enabled, the router can be easily reproduced.
- Javascript46
- Backed by Adobe13
- Free11
- Easy and developer friendly9
- Support more platforms6
- It's javascript, html, and css3
- Common code base across all mobile platform2
- Not bound to specific framework1
- Powerful Framework1
- Runs on mobile browser1
- Similar UI across all platform1
- Free easy fast and not buggy in my experience0
- Never as good as a native app2
- Created for web pages, not for complex Apps1
- Poor user experience1
- Not build for high performance1
- Hard to see1
related PhoneGap posts














I needed to choose a full stack of tools for cross platform mobile application design & development. After much research and trying different tools, these are what I came up with that work for me today:
For the client coding I chose Framework7 because of its performance, easy learning curve, and very well designed, beautiful UI widgets. I think it's perfect for solo development or small teams. I didn't like React Native. It felt heavy to me and rigid. Framework7 allows the use of #CSS3, which I think is the best technology to come out of the #WWW movement. No other tech has been able to allow designers and developers to develop such flexible, high performance, customisable user interface elements that are highly responsive and hardware accelerated before. Now #CSS3 includes variables and flexboxes it is truly a powerful language and there is no longer a need for preprocessors such as #SCSS / #Sass / #less. React Native contains a very limited interpretation of #CSS3 which I found very frustrating after using #CSS3 for some years already and knowing its powerful features. The other very nice feature of Framework7 is that you can even build for the browser if you want your app to be available for desktop web browsers. The latest release also includes the ability to build for #Electron so you can have MacOS, Windows and Linux desktop apps. This is not possible with React Native yet.
Framework7 runs on top of Apache Cordova. Cordova and webviews have been slated as being slow in the past. Having a game developer background I found the tweeks to make it run as smooth as silk. One of those tweeks is to use WKWebView. Another important one was using srcset on images.
I use #Template7 for the for the templating system which is a no-nonsense mobile-centric #HandleBars style extensible templating system. It's easy to write custom helpers for, is fast and has a small footprint. I'm not forced into a new paradigm or learning some new syntax. It operates with standard JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS 3. It's written by the developer of Framework7 and so dovetails with it as expected.
I configured TypeScript to work with the latest version of Framework7. I consider TypeScript to be one of the best creations to come out of Microsoft in some time. They must have an amazing team working on it. It's very powerful and flexible. It helps you catch a lot of bugs and also provides code completion in supporting IDEs. So for my IDE I use Visual Studio Code which is a blazingly fast and silky smooth editor that integrates seamlessly with TypeScript for the ultimate type checking setup (both products are produced by Microsoft).
I use Webpack and Babel to compile the JavaScript. TypeScript can compile to JavaScript directly but Babel offers a few more options and polyfills so you can use the latest (and even prerelease) JavaScript features today and compile to be backwards compatible with virtually any browser. My favorite recent addition is "optional chaining" which greatly simplifies and increases readability of a number of sections of my code dealing with getting and setting data in nested objects.
I use some Ruby scripts to process images with ImageMagick and pngquant to optimise for size and even auto insert responsive image code into the HTML5. Ruby is the ultimate cross platform scripting language. Even as your scripts become large, Ruby allows you to refactor your code easily and make it Object Oriented if necessary. I find it the quickest and easiest way to maintain certain aspects of my build process.
For the user interface design and prototyping I use Figma. Figma has an almost identical user interface to #Sketch but has the added advantage of being cross platform (MacOS and Windows). Its real-time collaboration features are outstanding and I use them a often as I work mostly on remote projects. Clients can collaborate in real-time and see changes I make as I make them. The clickable prototyping features in Figma are also very well designed and mean I can send clickable prototypes to clients to try user interface updates as they are made and get immediate feedback. I'm currently also evaluating the latest version of #AdobeXD as an alternative to Figma as it has the very cool auto-animate feature. It doesn't have real-time collaboration yet, but I heard it is proposed for 2019.
For the UI icons I use Font Awesome Pro. They have the largest selection and best looking icons you can find on the internet with several variations in styles so you can find most of the icons you want for standard projects.
For the backend I was using the #GraphCool Framework. As I later found out, #GraphQL still has some way to go in order to provide the full power of a mature graph query language so later in my project I ripped out #GraphCool and replaced it with CouchDB and Pouchdb. Primarily so I could provide good offline app support. CouchDB with Pouchdb is very flexible and efficient combination and overcomes some of the restrictions I found in #GraphQL and hence #GraphCool also. The most impressive and important feature of CouchDB is its replication. You can configure it in various ways for backups, fault tolerance, caching or conditional merging of databases. CouchDB and Pouchdb even supports storing, retrieving and serving binary or image data or other mime types. This removes a level of complexity usually present in database implementations where binary or image data is usually referenced through an #HTML5 link. With CouchDB and Pouchdb apps can operate offline and sync later, very efficiently, when the network connection is good.
I use PhoneGap when testing the app. It auto-reloads your app when its code is changed and you can also install it on Android phones to preview your app instantly. iOS is a bit more tricky cause of Apple's policies so it's not available on the App Store, but you can build it and install it yourself to your device.
So that's my latest mobile stack. What tools do you use? Have you tried these ones?
For a front end dev like me, using a mobile framework for side projects makes more sense than writing a native app. I had used Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) before (because React Native didn't exist yet), and was happy with it. But once React Native came out, it made more sense to go that way instead. It's more efficient and smooth, since it doesn't have the simulation overhead, and has more access to hardware features. It feels cleaner since you don't need to deal with #WebView, using native UI widgets directly. I also considered Flutter . It looks promising, but is relatively new to the game, and React Native seems more stable for now.
MobileFrameworks #JavaScript NativeApps
- Ios248
- Elegant175
- Not Objective-C123
- Backed by apple105
- Type inference89
- Generics58
- Playgrounds51
- Semicolon free47
- OSX37
- Tuples offer compound variables34
- Clean Syntax21
- Easy to learn21
- Open Source20
- Functional19
- Beautiful Code17
- Linux10
- Dynamic10
- Promotes safe, readable code9
- Protocol-oriented programming8
- Explicit optionals7
- No S-l-o-w JVM7
- Storyboard designer5
- Super addicting language, great people, open, elegant4
- Type safety4
- Optionals4
- Best UI concept4
- Feels like a better C++3
- Swift is faster than Objective-C3
- Faster and looks better3
- Easy to Maintain2
- Strong Type safety2
- Fail-safe2
- Its fun and damn fast2
- Highly Readable codes2
- Native2
- Protocol extensions2
- Powerful2
- Much more fun2
- Its friendly2
- Easy to learn and work2
- Protocol as type1
- Protocol oriented programming1
- Great for Multi-Threaded Programming1
- Objec1
- Type Safe1
- All Cons C# and Java Swift Already has1
- Free from Memory Leak1
- Swift is easier to understand for non-iOS developers.1
- Actually don't have to own a mac1
- Can interface with C easily1
- Esay1
- Numbers with underbar1
- MacOS1
- Optional chain1
- Must own a mac2
- Memory leaks are not uncommon2
- Its classes compile to roughly 300 lines of assembly1
- Complicated process for exporting modules1
- Very irritatingly picky about things that’s1
- Is a lot more effort than lua to make simple functions1
- Overly complex options makes it easy to create bad code0
related Swift posts
Hi Community! Trust everyone is keeping safe. I am exploring the idea of building a #Neobank (App) with end-to-end banking capabilities. In the process of exploring this space, I have come across multiple Apps (N26, Revolut, Monese, etc) and explored their stacks in detail. The confusion remains to be the Backend Tech to be used?
What would you go with considering all of the languages such as Node.js Java Rails Python are suggested by some person or the other. As a general trend, I have noticed the usage of Node with React on the front or Node with a combination of Kotlin and Swift. Please suggest what would be the right approach!
WordPress Magento PHP Java Swift JavaScript
Back in the days, we started looking for a date on different matrimonial websites as there were no Dating Applications. We used to create different profiles. It all changed in 2012 when Tinder, an Online Dating application came into India Market.
Tinder allowed us to communicate with our potential soul mates. That too without paying any extra money. I too got 4-6 matches in 6 years. It changed the life of many Millennials. Tinder created a revolution of its own. P.S. - I still don't have a date :(
Posting my first article. Please have a look and do give feedback.
Communication InAppChat Dating Matrimonial #messaging
- Android studio is a great tool, getting better and bet172
- Google's official android ide100
- Intelligent code editor with lots of auto-completion35
- Its powerful and robust25
- Easy creating android app5
- Amazing Layout Designer3
- Great tool & very helpful3
- Great Code Tips3
- Built in Emulator2
- Keyboard Shortcuts are Amazing Out of the box2
- Easy to use2
- Cc1
- Huge memory usage4
- Slow emulator4
- No checking incompatibilities2
- Complex for begginers2
- Lags behind IntelliJ IDEA1
- Slow release process1
related Android Studio posts
In my modest opinion, Flutter is the future of mobile development. The framework is as important to mobile as React is to the web. And seeing that React Native does not finish taking off, I am focusing all my efforts on learning Flutter and Dart. The ecosystem is amazing. The community is crazy about Flutter. There are enough resources to learn and enjoy the framework, and the tools developed to work with it are amazing. Android Studio or Visual Studio Code has incredible plugins and Dart is a pretty straight forward and easy-to-learn language, even more, if you came from JavaScript. I admit it. I'm in love with Flutter. When you are not a designer, having a framework focused on design an pretty things is a must. And counting with tools like #flare for animations makes everything easier. It is so amazing that I wish I had a big mobile project right now at work just to use Flutter.
As a Engineering Manager & Director at SmartZip, I had a mix of front-end, back-end, #mobile engineers reporting to me.
Sprints after sprints, I noticed some inefficiencies on the MobileDev side. People working multiple sprints in a row on their Xcode / Objective-C codebase while some others were working on Android Studio. After which, QA & Product ensured both applications were in sync, on a UI/UX standpoint, creating addional work, which also happened to be extremely costly.
Our resources being so limited, my role was to stop this bleeding and keep my team productive and their time, valuable.
After some analysis, discussions, proof of concepts... etc. We decided to move to a single codebase using React Native so our velocity would increase.
After some initial investment, our initial assumptions were confirmed and we indeed started to ship features a lot faster than ever before. Also, our engineers found a way to perform this upgrade incrementally, so the initial platform-specific codebase wouldn't have to entirely be rewritten at once but only gradually and at will.
Feedback around React Native was very positive. And I doubt - for the kind of application we had - no one would want to go back to two or more code bases. Our application was still as Native as it gets. And no feature or device capability was compromised.
Appcelerator
- Open Source4
- Android4
- Easy to learn4
- Javascript2
- IOS2
- Great community2
- Vue.js beta1
- Lots of native modules, components, libraries1
- Native UI1
- MVC-based1
- Paid plans available1
- Free1
- Write directly to iOS and Android SDK with JavaScript1
- Angular.js beta1
- No online IDE1