Tiny Guide to Find the Best Tech Stack for Mobile App Development

8 min readJan 18, 2019

App development is such a mighty mission.

Bringing an idea to execution, engaging target users, and driving handsome profits can never be an easy and mundane task.

In most of the cases, developers enjoy building challenging mobile apps to lure the tech-savvy generation and prove their technical mettle, but often their product backfires due to poor choice of tech stack. Considering the fact that competition in the mobile market is surging like crazy, placing an off-putting or buggy app-offering based on obsolete tech stack is a bad idea- it can tarnish the reputation of the firm and divert the revenue to the businesses playing big in the industry.

To rein hurting the brand value and deliver bigger than ordinary experiences, it’s must to carefully vet and choose the best technology stack for mobile app development. Your smart decision will help you shape an app with appropriate front-end and back-end, alongside looping the desired aspects of robustness, efficiency, and security.

Finding the Best Technology Stack for Mobile App Project

If you play a game with an aim to win, you most likely will taste the flavour of success. Mobile app development is no easy feat, but if you have a clear idea of the defining traits of the product and a vision for strategic implementation, you can dance on your own tune and architect a powerful and scalable app. Let’s dive deeper and look at the top tech stacks that are popularly chosen to create a top-quality app.

Native App Development

Be it startup growth companies or business conglomerates, native app development is popular with both. With heavy inclination on performance, security and responsiveness, native apps prove to be a vital asset to go productive online. Let’s start off to know which tech stacks are getting the limelight in the recent time-

Android Tech Stack

For developing Android apps, Kotlin and Java are always high in demand, and the preferred toolset is Android Studio.

Java

When it comes to Android App Development, the name of Java is bound to top the list. Being Open Source, this class-based Object Oriented Programming language comes with a grand bunch of rich libraries and tools that makes it easy to craft top-quality apps. Here are the reasons why Java is developer’s beloved tech to craft Android applications-

Highly secured (gets executed outside the JVM)
Vast set of core features
Portable and scalable
Automatic memory management
Multi-threading capability
Accelerated assembly within Gradle
Faster build process
Huge open source support ecosystem

A hard-to-miss downfall with Java is the fact that it is sometimes slow and eats up significant memory. Howbeit, overall the language is much-loved for its robustness, scalability and ability to create complex applications.

Kotlin

When compared to Java, Kotlin is fairly new, making a worldwide appearance in 2011. The language can be deemed as a solution that blends simplicity and power, and is supported by JetBrains, with several third-party contributors.

Along with being a popular OOP Language, Kotlin makes an exceptional choice for functional programming by supporting higher order functions and lambadas. It makes Android development easier by speeding up day-to-day development tasks.

Today, Kotlin is emerging as a go-to to option to enable mixed-language projects. Here are the top benefits of using this potential alternative to Java-

Language is concise and safer
Open source
Extension functions
Supports full Java interoperability
Lazy-loading feature
Multi-platform
Helps to reduce bugs and errors in the code
Active community

You can expect more growth of Kotlin in the coming years!

iOS Teck Stack

Objective C and Swift- these two languages rule iOS app development. Highly sought-after toolsets are Apple’s Xcode and JetBrains’ AppCode.

Objective C

Based on C, Objective C is a High-Level Language (HLL) which was predominantly used for developing iOS apps before the inception of Swift. Created in the mid-1980s by Stepstone, this superset of C language is chosen by several mobile app development companies to write apps for iPhone, Mac, Apple watch, iPad, and more devices. The notable reasons for picking Objective C includes-

Highly approved, thoroughly tested language
Easy and better use of private APIs
Expressive message syntax
Compatibility with C++
Plenty of third-party libraries
Massive community support
Simplicity and access to Apple technologies

Objective C is still fairly popular, but after the arrival of Swift, the dynamics are changing. However, for building complex products, the language is still ruling. As long as Apple favours Objective C, there will always be a market for it.

Swift

Swift is a multi-paradigm open source language, widely used for building top-performing iOS and OS X apps. This young-age tech is becoming one of the highly-rated technologies among iOS app developers. Stack Overflow’s 2018 survey clearly suggests that Swift is getting a lot of preference from the professional developer community-

Here are the reasons why Swift is ‘trending’ and getting major limelight-

Modern and feature-rich programming language
Operates faster- better performance
Easy code readability and maintenance
Safe and less prone to errors
Compatible with Objective C
Works with Apple’s Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks
Multi-device support
Dynamic libraries
Active community support

Many companies are planning to hire dedicated Swift developers to design and deploy the best iOS products. It is possible that the language can soon reach the top of the App Development charts.

Hybrid App Development

Hybrid applications are crafted to ensure the speed of web development and achieve the UX of a native mobile app. These apps are created by using a set of standard web technologies like JavaScript, HTML and CSS and hosted inside a native app which utilises the WebView of a mobile platform.

That being said, let’s now talk about the most commonly and frequently used frameworks to fuel the development process- Adobe PhoneGap & Apache Cordova, Sencha Touch 2, and Ionic.

Adobe PhoneGap & Apache Cordova

Adobe PhoneGap & Apache Cordova is web-based framework used to build cross-platform applications using HTML. As a matter of fact, Apache Cordova, provides the main strength to PhoneGap; which happens to be a distribution of the Apache Cordova. It can be used to create applications that are native to iOS, Android and Windows using a combination of web technologies. It lets designers develop an app by making use of the properties of the local assets of a gadget.

Sencha Touch 2

There are no two ways about it that Sencha Touch 2 is one of the most efficient frameworks that blends the features of multiple technologies like JavaScript, HTML and ExtJS. The framework is ideal to build dynamic apps that work on Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, BlackBerry, and more. Also, if one wants to roll out a highly complex hybrid application with an interactive UI as that of a native app, Sencha Touch 2 is the ultimate choice!

Ionic

Ionic is an Angular-based framework that empowers developers to create powerful & versatile applications boasting a unified look and feel. It is an open source, 100% free, and a fitment to design basic native functionalities within an app to run on different OS and devices. Just design an application once, and deploy across Android, iOS, and Windows devices. The key benefits of using Ionic include-

Supports rich and robust development
Rapid development- no need to code everything from scratch
Mainly developed in HTML, CSS, and JS, which are all highly familiar languages
Several ready-made plugins
AngularJS compatible
Engaged community

Yet another aspect is the fact that development cost and maintenance with Ionic is less when compared to native iOS and Android development.

Cross-Platform Development

Now that you know Native and Hybrid app development, let’s move to our final section- discussing the cross-platform mobile application development. An intermediate language, such as JavaScript is used for such development which isn’t native to the device’s operating system. This opens up ways to share common code (around 80%-90%) across different target platforms, thus saving development time, efforts and costs. Two technologies, React Native and Xamarin are largely used to mimic the functionality of native apps, learn about them here-

React Native

Developed by developers at Facebook, React Native is a wildly popular Open source JS framework, much loved for creating exciting mobile apps that are supportable by both Android and iOS. This new-gen React makes it easier to craft a class user interface and deliver a seamless user experience, which altogether contributes to driving profits and boosting brand value.

There are numerous reasons to hire React native Developer for cross-platform development, but top-most perks can be listed as-

Cross-platform compatibility
Faster and cost-effective development
High performant- as fast as native
Live reload feature
Third-party plugin compatibility
Highly responsive and fluid UI
Behemoth brands like Walmart, Bloomberg, Facebook, Instagram etc, use React Native
Better development environment

All in all, React Native comes with a large list of features, which never fail to appeal to meticulous developers and high-aspiring businesses.

Xamarin

Xamarin is a top-rated tech stack- it is used for the development of native cross-platform applications. App developers can write code in languages like C and .Net Framework. Once the code is in place, it is compiled with the native iOS UI or Android UI. Here are the top benefits that whirl around Xamarin app development-

Allows to utilise MVC or MVVVM design patterns
Native user interface
High-performing and productive code
TestCloud to test the apps automatically
Shared app logic
Supports Android, iOS and Windows platforms
Fewer bugs
Xamarin component store
Vast community support

Xamarin is now emerging as a major player of cross-platform mobile app development. It is best-suited for those who are fond of Microsoft products & technologies.

Summing it up

To wrap up, we can simply say that among aforesaid and other trending technologies, you ought to choose the ones that best-aligns with the need and vision of your project. Your informed choice will help you hit the moon and enjoy a dominating presence in the web world and beyond.

We at Systango are indisputable leader of our craft- we offer the best mobile app development services to help businesses transform into brands with significant ease. We work with the best technology stack for mobile app development and ensure on-time delivery. If you want to avail assistance of the meticulous developers or need a consultation to choose a fitting tech stack, you can contact us anytime!

This article was originally published by Systango Technologies, a specialised software studio. To get in touch with our team for web and mobile development, contact us now!