Cross-Platform frameworks: A comparative study

An objective comparison between the most commonly used cross-platform frameworks.

Developed as a collaboration project between Intelygenz Software and the University of Cádiz.

The study aimed to dispel doubts when choosing a cross-platform development. For this, we compared the most used cross-platform frameworks in the software development industry (React Native, Ionic, Flutter and Weex) have been compared in terms of execution times and code quality, offering an objective comparison between them.

This comparison has been made through the development of four benchmark applications, one in each of the frameworks and the measurement of metrics in them for the subsequent contrast of the data obtained.

For each of the developed applications, we measured various metrics, such as execution times, the number of objects created, and the number of function calls. These measurements were taken while performing simple CRUD tasks (add, remove, update, and delete) on lists of varying lengths (100, 500, and 1000 elements each).

With the help of SonarQube, we also gathered code quality metrics, such as code smells and the total number of lines in the project.

We concluded that, despite the difference in performance compared to native applications, cross-platform development is an alternative to consider when undertaking mobile development due to its significant advantages in terms of versatility and cost.