10 Powerful Open-Source Tools For Mobile App Development

Mobile application development has grown in leaps and bounds over the last decade or so mainly due to the development of a number of open source tools that are equipped with cutting edge technology. This page would discuss the features of 10 such open source tools that facilitate development of mobile applications. However, before we do so, let us first know what is mobile application (or app as it is called) development.

Mobile app development can be defined as a technique that is followed while developing application software that are meant for hand held devices which are run by relatively low power. These devices generally include personal as well as enterprise digital assistance and mobile phones. All these mobile apps can either be pre-installed on the phones when they are being manufactured, downloaded by the customers from different available platforms of software distribution, or can be delivered as web based applications using client-side or server-side processing with a view to lend a real life experience within a particular web browser.

Now let us get back to where we started from. Mobile app development has got a shot in its arm due to the development of a number of powerful open source tools that have come up of late. Let us discuss ten of them one by one.

1) Firebase

Whenever we speak of a particular application, its efficacy depends upon the quantity of data it can handle or store. Or in other words, the lifeblood of an app depends upon the amount of data it deals with. From that aspect, Firebase easily gets into the list of 10 most powerful tools, more so because of the fact that it makes storing as well as sharing data a lot easier than ever before. Besides, the amount of data it can seamlessly deal with is simply astounding. All a user needs to do is to set up a particular project and Firebase will handle the rest automatically. It will manage all the technicalities of setting up key-value store. It is also equipped with tools with the help of which one can change the other users on the app, thereby making collaboration much easier as well as simpler.

2) Appscend

This open source tool is designed to offer the typical cloud based development of various content -centric applications with the use of an XML markup language along with PHP. It bundles a design system that is based on templates with a cloud-based CMS. This provides the users the option of adding ads, push buttons and last but not the least, the liberty to upload the results directly on the Google Play or on App Store.

3) Parse

You will find a number of mobile app development tools that mainly focus on creation of an interactive glue that shows up on screen. Parse is the tool that mainly creates the back end of that glue. It has in offing a wide range of APIs that help in storing along with pushing notifications to an app.

4) Adobe PhoneGap

This particular open source technology helps in developing cross-platform mobile apps via web based technologies like CSS, HTML, JavaScript and so on. It is actually a distribution of Apache Cordova project where Cordova serves as the engine.

5) Apple Xcode IDE

Apple Xcode IDE helps in development of apps for Macs besides the ones for iPhone as well as iPad. It comes up with a tool for instrument analysis, an iOS simulator, SDKs for Mac OS and iOS. It integrates with Cocoa Touch and Cocoa frameworks as well.

6) Marmalade SDK

Marmalade SDK helps the developers in building applications with the use of Javascript, CSS3 as well as HTML5.

7) MobileFrame

This is a development environment that is code-free and which helps the business users without any programming knowledge or skills in building cross platform and HTML5 mobile applications which can be customized to fit in a particular business process.

8) Bootstrap

Bootstrap is used in sync with jQuery and is absolutely indispensable when it comes to delivering attractive, mobile-ready, responsive websites. It comes up in two avatars – 2.3.2 version and 3.0 format, with the later one being launched only recently.

9) Angular JS

Angular JS helps the user to opt for static HTML and then transform it into dynamic HTML. Data can automatically be subjected to controls while one can also validate the forms and the best part is that there is no need to write voluminous JS codes that is time consuming as well as laborious. One can even develop new HTML syntax and customize it to suit the needs of the application.

10) Icenium Mist

This is a browser-based application tool that offers the user the option of building, testing as well as shipment of HTML5 apps for android or iOS. The testing and building can be done in the browser itself but the shipping needs to be done with Apache Cordova library version.

There are a number of other application development tools which are highly effective when it comes to development of mobile apps. However, the ones that are described in this page are the most adorable as well as popular ones in terms of efficacy as well as flexibility. If you would like to develop an app which is more complicated in terms of the flow of the app and its logic, you can hire folks from top mobile app development companies who can help you build apps which are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide mobile app development services for diverse platforms including Windows Phone, iPhone and Android. If you would like to speak to one of our expert mobile app developers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.