Mobile development is certainly hot these days and as a result a number of mobile frameworks have popped up allowing you to target multiple devices with a single code base. Problem is, it’s not just one or two frameworks we are talking about, more like 20 or 30, maybe even more! Trying to pick the right one is a simply daunting task! You need to factor a number of things in such as quality, features available, price, languages supported and perhaps most important of all, the platforms supported.
Fortunately there is a tool that can greatly help. This handy matrix at markus-falk.com breaks down many of the available mobile frameworks. Down the left hand side are all of the various Frameworks, then across the top are the platforms they support, the languages you can program in, the features they support ( such as Accelerometer, Camera, etc.. ), as well as if it is freely available and if it is open source.
Snapshot of a portion of the matrix:
He also provided a handy filtering tool, oddly named “Start Wizard”. You can check off your criteria here and it will dynamically update the matrix to include only the frameworks that meet your criteria. Here is the wizard in action:
Simply click the features you require, hit Find Framework and PRESTO! a list of Frameworks compatible with your selection. The list is by no means perfect. First off, it is very iOS centric, but given that iOS is possibly the most popular OS for mobile development, I suppose this makes sense. Perhaps most glaringly, it doesn’t tell you if the framework can target PC, Linux or Mac, which is a shame as that is a very important detail to many people ( myself included ). Finally there are frameworks missing ( again, this goes back to the iOS centric aspect ), such as mobile web apps like Flash and Silverlight, or projects like MonoGame and ExEn. Additionally all the C++ specific frameworks like SIO or Marmalade are absent as well. I can understand why Flash and Silverlight would be left out, but then why was jQuery included?
Faults aside, this handy tool provides a wonderful starting point if you are looking for a cross platform mobile framework. Even better, much of the results are populated programmatically, so the data should stay fairly relevant as time goes on. Just be sure to keep in mind, other options exist!
So go ahead and check it out.
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