Mobile applications have become a critical part of almost every individual’s life these days. Their benefits are not just limited to social media as it helps people manage finances and even improve their health.
That’s why mobile app development technologies are increasing. However, to be able to move in the right direction and select the right cross-platform solution, you need to learn about different prominent development technologies that are proving to create great development opportunities for businesses. In this direction, we have a lot of hopes with the Xamarin framework.
What exactly is Xamarin?
Xamarin is a highly popular open-source framework for developing cross-platform applications with the help of the .NET codebase. It began as a commercial project but became an open-source platform after its acquisition by Microsoft in 2016. The main aim of this technology is to build efficient mobile applications for iOS and Android. If we talk about statistics alone, it looks like Xamarin is widely known as more than 2 million developers are using this technology in 120 countries across the globe.
Xamarin Pros
There are a great number of benefits brought by Xamarin app development that we have mentioned in detail below:
· Low Maintenance
Mobile apps developed using the Xamarin framework require comparatively easier maintenance. There is tremendous customer support backed by superbly presented documentation available to ease the process. The presence of Visual Studio and XCode makes the whole process a lot easier for the developers.
The approach to building applications for desktop and mobile gets highly simplified with Visual Studio, while XCode acts as IDE to develop applications for iOS devices. Unlike React Native, it doesn’t create complications for a mobile app development company.
· Solid Corporate Support
This technology presents incredible stability and technical support thanks to backing by a brand like Microsoft. It ensures the developers have 24X7 customer support that ensures the work doesn’t get affected in any manner. It gives access to a wide range of opportunities, including Xamarin courses for comprehensive documentation.
All these features allow the developers to provide wonderful sorts of mobile app development services, even at a broader level. Despite seizing Windows mobiles operation, Microsoft has continuously given priority to Xamarin as their top cross-app development platform.
· Native User Experience
The availability of specific UI elements allows a flawless experience for users. Using the forms tool, developers can convert UI elements into platform-specific components in the run time. Additionally, it is greatly beneficial for improving development speed, making things perfect for business projects.
Xamarin Essentials library gives access to overlapping native APIs to have better control over their work. All these things give the advantage of using a variety of unique elements for developing an app with platform-specific interfaces.
· Complete Package of Development Ecosystem
A whole set of development tools is provided in the Xamarin package, including IDE, distribution & analytics platform, Visual Studio App Center, and many more. It means developers won’t have to buy an extra tool for deploying and building Xamarin apps.
This complete package turns out to be very useful for creating superb apps that perfectly integrate with the mobile interface. The programmers can conveniently develop products that work smoothly on a variety of devices without creating any trouble.
· Near Native Performance
Another benefit that Xamarin App Development Company enjoys is taking the app’s performance to a native level. This technology’s forms provide the capability to translate app elements across multiple platforms or develop native codes for various operating systems. The programmers succeeded in accomplishing performance metrics nearly identical to native applications.
This advantage indeed allows the developers to stand out of the crowd and makes Xamarin better than other cross-app mobile development platforms. They get access to great functionalities like cameras and GPS for efficient working.
· Cost Effective
There is a single technological stack and reusable code utilized by the Xamarin framework. Due to this, the amount of time needed to create a single application is reduced to a greater level to complete the programming work quickly.
There is only a need for a single team to complete various tasks because it gets streamlined exceptionally by eliminating additional expenses. They succeeded in providing better mobile app development services without asking for a higher budget.
· Highly Integrated Testing
The Xamarin test clouds allow programmers to test their applications while completing the entire development process. It ensures that they develop faultless code generation for efficient working. Furthermore, these clouds work perfectly across various platforms, eliminating the need to do this task individually.
If someone finds faults before releasing the application, it will make things cost-effective compared with other available frameworks.
Xamarin Cons
Despite being a tremendous technology, there are a few Xamarin cons we want to mention below:
· Little Access to Open Source Libraries
Xamarin only lets developers use elements and .NET open source resources provided by them. It is pretty low compared with Native Development, which offers access to multiple open source technologies.
To tackle this issue, the developers use NuGet Packages for accessing the Xamarin components they don’t have.
· High Professional and Enterprise Costs
Although it is free to use for individual developers, there is a lot of fortune required to use this technology professionally. It can be spending lots of money on Visual Studio license purchasing or buying other compatible tools for completing the development task.
This additional cost can be a burden if this technology is used at a highly professional level.
· Demands Basic Native Languages Knowledge
Most clients ask a Xamarin mobile app development company to develop products with a native appearance. They have to write a platform-specific layer of code with native APIs for all the platforms to do this. Having a basic knowledge of the native language allows them to understand the documentation better.
· Large Size Apps
If we compare it with native analogous apps, the Xamarin-based apps have a slightly heavier size. It is necessary to develop the shared functionality due to code over heading. Microsoft has made significant improvements in recent years to make mobile applications lighter, but it’s still far behind native apps.
Conclusion
We have tried to introduce the community to the pros and cons of Xamarin to make the right decision while finding quality mobile app development services. This technology offers a range of benefits for iOS and Android, ranging from native app performance to faster development processes and many more. While it still has a few drawbacks that need improvement, we believe it is the ideal technology to promote greater cross-platform utility.
