What are the best tools for making a cross-platform application?

Question

25

Options
Considered

534

User
Recs.

Aug 5, 2022

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 23 OptionsWhy?

Best tools for making a cross-platform application	Price	Platforms	Visual GUI Builder
96 B4X	Free / paid	Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web, Raspberry Pi, Arduino	Yes, even on real devices
-- Lazarus	Free	Windows, Linux(Even Raspbian), Mac, Android	Yes
-- Quasar Framework	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, Web	-
-- Flutter	-	-	-
62 Web-based application	-	-	-

See Full List

22 Other Options Considered

Flutter

Top Con

Hand coding UI

Very slow and laborious for building UI's. It lacks a visual UI designer. See More

Top Pro

Instantly preview change made to the code (Hot reload)

Developers can see all the changes they’ve made to the code right away in the app. This helps in bug fixing and helps designers improve how the app looks and check effects immediately. See More

Specs

Mobile targets:Android and iOS

Languages:Dart

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac and Linux

Desktop targets:announced Windows

Top Con

Still in development

According to the website, Flutter is still in its early stages of development. See More

Top Pro

Supported by Google

Google is committed to developing flutter and plans to extend it to more platforms with support for web in preview and work is ongoing to extend Flutter to support desktop as a target environment, allowing developers to create macOS, Windows, and Linux applications with Flutter. See More

Top Con

Does not support 32-bit iOS devices

If you plan on targeting iPhone 5, 5C or earlier, you can forget about Flutter. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform development for iOS and Android (with Web and MacOS support for Flutter in tech preview)

Fluttter apps work across both iOS and Android. See More

Top Con

Only supported by mobile and web

Flutter currently is not supported by Windows, Linux or macOS. See More

Top Con

Limited libraries

Flutter relatively new so the number of libraries are relatively few as compared to other cross-platform services. See More

See All

Xojo

Top Pro

Easy to use

Easy to make compiled native apps. See More

Top Con

No Android support

They plan to eventually support Android, but for now, they only support iOS. See More

PerfectIoMatuaKore's Experience

Poor Android support. Buggy See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Pi, Web,iOS

Visual GUI Builder:Yes

Top Pro

Compiled apps are a major pro. The community is very helpful.

Top Con

Too many bugs

A lot of bugs reported by developers aren’t and won’t be solved. See More

Roman Varas's Experience

Very easy to learn, quite powerful once you learnt it See More

Top Pro

Very easy to learn, cross-platform compilation often requires just a click

More advanced features are doable with declared, great third-party plugins (Monkeybread & Einhugur are highly recommended), not a subscription. On the downside bugs can linger for years, some features not as complete or powerful as they should be, some expected features (eg calendar control) not there as community or third party provide solutions (so no need to implement and no wish to compete). See More

Top Con

Small company so can be down or bought at any time

Oliver Osswald's Experience

I used MS Visual Studio to create Windows desktop apps (C#, Dot.Net 2.0) and now I am mainly using Xojo to create native desktop apps on macOS, Windows and Ubuntu Linux. I also use Xojo to create standalone webservices running on Ubuntu servers, without need for apache or nginx. See More

Top Pro

Nice to have back end code that can be shared for Web apps as well as Desktop apps

Top Con

Limited resources for learning available

There are far too few learning resources available. Overpriced options don't contain up-to-date information. See More

Gavin's Experience

I've used Xojo for over 20 years. In fact, I've built my career on it. I know a number of other languages, including Swift, but I always come back to Xojo to make professional, powerful native apps, quickly. When you learn the IDE and language, you can transfer much of these skills from one target to the next. For example, you can make Windows and Mac apps and then reuse much of these skills to make Web or iOS apps. It's really easy to get started and the product will grow with you. I can honestly recommend it! See More

Top Pro

If you have bought a license you can use it for the rest of your life

You bough a LICENSE. See More

Top Con

Subscription-based/Not free

Using this product you're betting the company will still be around. If they get bought out by an enterprise that wants to use the tech internally, all they need to do is stop offering subscriptions and suddenly you're scrambling to rebuild your entire app on other technology. See More

kcully's Experience

Easy to get started. Powerful enough that you never reach the technology wall. Great community. Great company to work with BTW. See More

Top Pro

Standalone dev tool, you don't need a cloud to use it

Top Con

Targets not always 100% percent compliant with platform standards

What this means is that to get a perfect match for MacOS or Windows or Linux you will have to get into Declares or use 3rd party plugins to get them looking identical to what you'd get with the default platform IDE's (i.e. xCode for MacOS, Visual Studio for Windows). Xojo does the lowest common denominator for controls so it's a bit more work to make each target look perfect (or as perfect as possible). See More

LogicalToci's Experience

I get to make excellent looking professional applications with ease. Being a native app on each platform makes the app look feel correctly for the end user. See More

Top Pro

Nice to have back end code that can be shared for Web, Desktop & iOS apps

Looking forward to Android being added to the list. See More

SmartPrabhasa's Experience

easy to use, but powerful in the longer run. real multi platform app generated. dev team is too small IMHO so evolution is quite slow, but there is still so much to be improved. love it. See More

Top Pro

Easy to get in touch with the developers

Bob Keeney's Experience

I've been using Xojo for over 16 years. Xojo does a great job making consistent cross-platform (Mac, Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi) desktop applications and for the most part it's really is a just a checkbox to create native apps for each target. You can also create Mac, Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi console apps. You can also easily create web apps (not sites!) that work on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Raspberry Pi using much of same code base as desktop/console. Xojo also does iOS applications too. It's by far the youngest target in the product and currently requires using a different framework. The company is slowly migrating the framework to match the other targets. They are currently working on Android but no release date has been set. Having both iOS and Android will make the mobile offering much more complete. See More

Top Pro

Free to try, you pay only when you compile for a platform

You pay for one year of updates, then your license still works but you don't get more updates. See More

SkillfulPeckols's Experience

Very powerful and an extremely helpful community See More

Top Pro

It's been alive since 1998

Xojo has been going since 1998, through different OSs, different architectures and different trends. Many other languages and IDEs have come and gone in that time. See More

ComposedAnubis's Experience

Intuitive UI and language, compiles solid modern apps, devoted staff, welcoming community See More

Top Pro

Direct access to the CEO and the entire engineering and support staff.

All of their staff are available on their forum, including the CEO. See More

UnderstandingNjordr's Experience

Extremely easy to learn and powerful once you learn it. See More

Top Pro

Their forum is busy and extremely responsive.

Everyone on the forum is very engaged, opinionated, and generous with their expertise. I've asked many questions over the years and there is always a reply the same day, sometimes within minutes. See More

DynamicSakpata's Experience

I had been using VB6 and needed to build a Mac version of my app. Converting to Xojo was pretty painless, and I'm also using it to build apps for my web site. Next up are apps for iOS. Their pricing is reasonable (I'm leery of free), and their annual developer conference is terrific. See More

Top Pro

Running a debug instance of your app on Windows while the IDE is on Mac is a great way of working.

You can have the Xojo IDE running on macOS with a target build of your app running on a Windows computer, the two computers networked to each other. This lets you build on the Mac launch the app on Windows, then watch the code execute from the Mac, pausing to inspect or modify variables, without interfering with the IDE on the Windows computer. No lost or confused events that can happen when you interrupt a running app to do this. See More

George Balla's Experience

IOS support is terrible, just use Swift. No Android support at all. Very slow and buggy See More

Top Pro

Very helpful books about different themes

See All

GitHub Electron

Top Con

Microsoft

Developed by Microsoft-owned Github See More

Top Pro

Relatively low barrier to entry

No need to learn native UI APIs for multiple platforms. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Con

Extra effort may be required to make things look native on each platform

Top Pro

Has a built in packager which allows you to package web apps

the electron packager tool allows you to package your web app for any target platform that you desire, as long as you provide the correct information. See More

Top Con

Looks and feels like an alien

Top Con

Mobile platforms not supported

According to documentation only Windows, Linux and Mac are supported, no mobile platforms. See More

Top Con

Heavyweight

Requires a bit of system memory, and makes applications bulky due to the fact that all your web apps made in electron work in a NodeJS Shell that is basically a web browser displaying your app. See More

See All

MonoDevelop

Top Pro

Free

Top Con

Bad formatting

MonoDevelop doesn't offer much in terms of autocompletion and code formatting. Most of the time the automatic formatting that MonoDevelop does is annoying and not really compliant with C# guidelines. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

Interesting option for C#, F#, VB .NET and ASP.NET developers to create desktop and web applications on Linux, Windows and macOS. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows Linux Mac

Visual GUI Builder:Yes

Supported languages:C#, F#, Visual Basic .NET, Vala

GUIFramework:GTK

See All Specs

Top Pro

Database Addin

Addin supports MySql, Npgsql (PostgreSQL), Sqlite, Sql Server. See More

Top Con

No binaries for Windows

The IDE is only available as source code for Windows, although an older version seems to be available on Chocolatey. For Linux and Mac there are binaries available. See More

Top Pro

Multiple platform support

Top Pro

Multiple language support

See All

Qt Project

Top Pro

Extremely mature

With origins at Trolltech in 1991 and then with Nokia when they were at their zenith (remember when almost everyone had a Nokia cell phone?), plus adoption by some of the heaviest hitters in software development not named Microsoft/Apple/Google (think KDE, Wolfram Mathematica, etc.), it has evolved into a powerhouse among GUI implementation frameworks out of a need to remain useful to those demanding and innovative institutional customers. See More

Top Con

Expensive

Expensive for commercial use, starting at $459/month. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

It multi-threads excellently, provides hardware graphics acceleration via OpenGL, and is developed for a ridiculously wide range of platforms from Windows to Linux to Solaris. It gives you all the power of C++ compiled binaries for those functions that need it with the flexibility and ease of development of web standards like HTML5/CSS3/TypeScript thanks to QML and Qt Quick. There are robust wrappers for almost every other major computing language in use (and sometimes more than one to choose from) like QtPy, and PySide, Rust-Qt and Ritual, QtJambi for Java, QtRuby, and the list goes on. Many people like to point out that it doesn't look precisely native on any of the supported platforms, but they're missing the fact that it manages to looks both polished and even more important, consistent, on ALL of them. You can have your Electron and your wxWidgets, I'm gonna keep dancing with Qt. See More

Top Pro

Cross platform

Works on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOs, etc. See More

Top Con

It feels unfinished

Shouldn't have a paid license; QML has very strong foundations, very easy to extend and customize but the default controls (especially for desktop) look awful. Digia didn't have the strength to finish it: the default Tabs control has a really unintuitive API and looks very raw (the tabs don't even have the close (x) buttons. Missing controls for treeview or gridview...So much wasted potential, it's a shame... See More

George Balla's Experience

awesome to work with See More

Top Pro

best programming toolkit ever: the power of C++ with the elegance of Java; plus QML

Top Con

Licensing issue

Needs license for commercial use. See More

See All

Xamarin

Top Pro

Lets you build on existing .NET knowledge

If you have a background in Windows development, chances are you already know WPF and .NET. Xamarin and Xamarin Forms extends this to other major platforms. And you can reuse existing .NET libraries and packages. See More

Top Con

Build time tends to be longer than Android Studio

Specs

Mobile targets:Android, iOS, Windows Phone

Languages:C#

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Apps built with Xamarin can run natively on Android, iOS and Windows Mobile. Xamarin compiles the same C# or F# codebase to native code that runs on several platforms. See More

Top Con

Slow to implement new features; must wait 1+ month to be able to access it

Top Pro

Visual Studio IDE

If Windows is your primary working system, you can write and debug your code on all platforms and devices in Visual Studio, one of the most powerful and productive IDEs available today. A very capable free edition (Community Edition) is available. See More

Top Con

UI editing and creation is unstable

See All

Delphi

Top Pro

Single code base to create Windows, iOS, Mac OS and Android app

JoeC.'s Experience

There is now a free community edition if you are developing free open source projects. Same as the paid "Pro" version. See More

Specs

Current Version:Sydney 10.4

Price:Community Edition: Free Professional: $1,495.00 Enterprise: $3,514.00 Architect: $5,623.00

Top Pro

Strongly typed

ArtisticPallas's Experience

Great!!! See More

Top Pro

Runtime speed

George Balla's Experience

Best programming language, supports Windows 32/64 Linux, IOS/Android See More

Top Pro

Able to deliver SEX (single executable applications)

Top Pro

Compilation speed

See All

Kotlin

Top Pro

Easy to learn if you have prior programming experience

Kotlin's syntax is extremely easy to understand. The language can be picked up in a few hours just by reading the language reference. See More

Hosch Nok's Experience

Kotlin is a real multi purpose language, since you can even compile to js or web assembly. It is mainly used for ios and android applications. The developers are the creators of intellij IDE, which is probably the only IDE, which can afford to offer yearly subscriptions. However, the community edition is free and Android projects will be created with Kotlin by default. So you have the best IDE coupled with a deeply integraded programming language, which compiles down to native code. See More

Specs

Current stable version:1.3

Top Pro

Officially supported for Android development

Starting with version 3.0 of Android Studio, Kotlin support will be built-in. This means that it's now easier than ever to use Kotlin for existing Android projects or even start writing Android apps only with Kotlin from scratch. This also means that Kotlin and Kotlin plugins for Android Studio will be fully supported in the future and their likelihood of being abandoned is quite small since Google is fully embracing the language for their Android ecosystem (alongside Java and C++). See More

Top Pro

Great tooling support

Since Kotlin is made by Jetbrains (the developers of IntelliJ IDEA) so it stands to reason that the IntelliJ support for Kotlin is also great. Besides that, Kotlin also works well with existing Java tools such as Eclipse, Maven, Gradle, Android Studio, etc... See More

See All

OpenGL

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, OS/2, UNIX, OPENStep, BeOS, NetBSD

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score 246 · Accepted Answer

B4X

Top Pro

A very active forum where you can find any issue you have, and quick answers to new ones

Top Con

Lack of B4W real Web app

Erel needs to make a real Web app designer. See More

HappyAsterion's Experience

B4X is an excellent cross-platform development RAD tool that I personally highly recommend to both new and more established developers. B4X one code multiple platforms RAD solution is elegantly put together by its creator Anyway Software. Creating iOS, Android, Windows and MacOS apples using basically almost the same code (in the same modules) and using the same layouts is a game changer for B4X as far as I'm concerned. I've created multiple mobile apps and also multiple Windows and MacOS desktop apps for clients using B4X (B4A, B4J and B4i) RAD tools, my clients are alway 100% happy with their bespoke app solutions. I'll keep using B4X as there are regular updates released to make developing and creating app easier and faster to achieve. The B4X community forum is the most active developer forum that I've come across and the support for B4X from the developer (Anywhere Software) really is second to none. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web, Raspberry Pi, Arduino

Visual GUI Builder:Yes, even on real devices

Mobile targets:Android, iOS, Windows Tablets, Mobile IoT Devices

License:Apache License 2.0

See All Specs

Top Pro

A highly motivated program author who is very active in the forums

Erel Uziel is simply the most pro-active Soft-Creator/Forum Manager you will ever come across. If it has not yet been asked & answered, just ask and you will be answered withing minutes, and thanks to it being a trully international forum, this is achieved 24h/7d. See More

Top Con

Only for Windows

The IDE, while very handy, only runs on Windows. If you want to code on Mac or Linux, you have to install it on a virtual machine. But you can debug your app by running it on the target OS. See More

StrongPan's Experience

I am satisfied to the max for my personal office and automation applications See More

Top Pro

Create easy, fast cross-platform views with less code

B4XUI custom views are designed, by Erel and other forum members, exactly with this in mind; custom views that act and feel exactly the same no matter what platform you target. See More

Top Con

Java-dependent Desktop Development

PleasantEingana's Experience

It's easy to code with. It works. The community is really helpful, and the developer as well. See More

Top Pro

Very easy to use and powerful for IoT

Support for Bluetooth/BLE, MQTT, TCP/UDP, Serial, NFC, Websockets, HTTP/2 across platforms makes it the ideal tool for IoT projects. See More

Top Con

The documentation and examples and tutorials are not up to date

The documentation and examples and tutorials are not up to date. See More

IntuitiveKarora's Experience

Just superb See More

Top Pro

Live code swapping

A huge productivity boost when you can run your apps on the devices and make code changes real time without needing to recompile. See More

FlexibleEupheme's Experience

Been using it for 10+? years. I wanted to write some android apps but I am a died in the wool VBA/SQL programmer and didn't want to learn Java so this was perfect. When B4X pages was created it made it so simple to do Win/Android/iphone apps we are now doing additions to our main software so users can access data from there phones. We are a small company with limited resources. B4x has made it possible for us to offer things that would otherwise be impossible for us. And the support is amazing! See More

Top Pro

Powerful general purpose programming tool

As mentioned in its website, "With B4X, anyone who wants to, can develop real-world solutions." See More

RationalPabilsag's Experience

(From Brazil) Visto que a linguagem é BASIC (parecido com vb.net), se torna muito fácil de programar, e o mesmo código serve para várias plataformas. O fórum é rico em informações e o pessoal lá está sempre pronto para ajudar. See More

Top Pro

No complexities compared with other tools

No need to learn JAVA, C+, PHP, or any other complementary languages in order to achieve exactly what you need. See More

Carlos Amador Gonzalez Jimenez's Experience

Desarrollo rapido, encuentro funciones para el manejo de cualquier tipo de conexion, multiplataforma See More

Top Pro

The best all round

Produces highly optimised end results. Easy to use and quick to learn. When you know how to produce an Android app you near enough know how to produce an IOS app. The fact that there are subtle differences between writing for different platforms is a huge plus - those differences help optimise your code and they're really not difficult to wrap your head round. See More

EnthusiasticMetztli's Experience

Extremely light to download. Extremely easy to install. Extremely easy to learn. I haven't found any bugs so far (many years of use). Constant updates. Very well documented. Active community. ALL my issues were resolved within minutes. See More

Top Pro

Erel has much passion for his tool

The speed of answer topics is amazing. See More

CheerfulPholus's Experience

A perfect Tool for Developing Android/IOS or Desktop Apps, the support is Excellent and the IDE is very very friendly; You can develop even a basic to an a robust App See More

Top Pro

Many informative video tutorials

The tutorials help beginners as well as more experienced programmers grasping important concepts. See More

LovelyGaxiSonnim's Experience

I have done an application for control an instrument (STM32F1) by Bluetooth in one day. Amazing. See More

Top Pro

Many code examples of fully working apps for free

The Forum is filled with many code examples of fully working apps for free. Code snippets, animation, different type of views etc. can be easily downloaded and used in your own app. See More

PoliteBathala's Experience

It's a software that really works and deliver what it should. It' really easy to use and yet very capable and the forum is a gold mine of informations. B4X is a really fast way to put an idea into reality. It's a tool that brings back again the joy of programming. See More

Top Pro

Large user community

Over the years it has built up a very active user community that is very involved in the evolution of B4X. In their forums you can find any answer to your questions, and if it is not there, they will answer you. See More

Tsel eBill's Experience

easy to use, lightweight. best tool ever!! See More

Top Pro

RAD

VERY Rapid Application Development, with tons of pro features. See More

ConsiderateIapetus's Experience

Very easy to learn and to use. See More

Top Pro

Tightly integrated framework

DazzlingHanXiangzi's Experience

The best free Software Development For Linux ,IOs , android , arduino , winx..... The community is very active... See More

Top Pro

Almost everything is free and complete

Except the IDE for iOS. Even so it's very cheap. See More

TolerantHidimba's Experience

It is easy to learn and the codes are reusable across the platforms. See More

Virgilio Palacio's Experience

This Product is Power full an Excellent, from Raspberry to Windows, Linux and Mac. From Play Store to App Store. It just Great See More

jackkirk9498's Experience

I have over 55 years of programming experience in all sorts of roles and spent a lot of time researching what platform to use when I decided to conquer smartphones. I found B4X and have never regretted it. I occasionally go out looking for alternatives just for interest sake and have never found anything that comes close. See More

Jack Cole's Experience

I have used many cross platform development tools. Hands down, B4X is my favorite. If you are serious about iOS development, you might need a Mac to run the simulator and for compiling your code. Support from the forums is first rate. I have several production apps based on B4X for Android and iOS with over 30 million downloads. See More

JP Chams's Experience

I was able to produce a test app with UI 90 minuts after the installation :) See More

TranquilSpentaArmaiti's Experience

B4X developer since 2012 See More

SensibleCottyto's Experience

Easy to Use. User Interface is well structured. See More

AssertiveHayk's Experience

The recent addition of B4X pages makes it super easy to create most of the code to be common between Android and iOS. See More

InfluentialNemain's Experience

Great community User friendly IDE Easy for beginners and very powerfull The best GUI editor you can create very modern and gread UI with it See More

HelpfulPodarge's Experience

99% of same code works for Android, IOS and Windows. Intelligent IDE, helpful Debugger and vast knowledge code base in Forum. Many code examples for fully working app for FREE. See More

ConscientiousBarnumbirr's Experience

Professional See More

PracticalThoon's Experience

I'm currently convertion an android app done with b4a to b4i, the experience has had its challenges but then again, creating iOS Apps with almost 90% of the same code base is awesome! In B4J I'm basically doing everything Vuetify CDN with BANano (Javascript Transpiler), most awesome thing Ive ever done. A very competent cross platform tool. See More

amykonio's Experience

I use B4A and B4J (but mostly B4J). In B4A I've created two small applications for personal use. With B4J I do lot of things because I found it to powerful and easy to use. I've done lot of applications that interact with databases in my previous job. One of those applications was internally used by 30-50 users. Also soon we wil launch a web application that will be available in Greece. See More

LoyalPiltzintecuhtli's Experience

The best tool is here. You only need an idea for your project. See More

InterestingTammuz's Experience

It is a tool easy to learn. You have very quickly a good result. The community is very active and. very helpful. See More

DedicatedAmanikable's Experience

I considered a ton of other options, including HTML/CSS/Javascript, Flutter, Xamarin, etc. None were as easy to use (development) nor output to more platforms than B4X. See More

Alwaysbusy's Experience

Great support, swift updates, excellent fast growing community See More

FantasticCacoch's Experience

My experience so far is very positive both for the quality of the development tools and for the support that can be obtained from the community that uses these tools. See More

Archie Bunker's Experience

As a longtime active full stack developer with more than 20 years of experience, B4X has the most advantages for me. Very clear script concept, very varied examples, practical and a nontoxic community. See More

FantasticZagreus's Experience

I tested several options, and with B4X, was the plattform I got some results in less time, so I decided to use it See More

Paulo Gomes's Experience

Been using B4X product for over 10 years. Its the very best RAD suite available, being you a noob or an expert, Code is as simple and logic as it can get, and you will never find better support anywhere else! See More

Steve De George's Experience

Very active forum. No question goes unanswered, See More

VigilantAernus's Experience

It is a tool set that makes your life much easier, besides being very powerful and complete, it has great support. Thanks B4X! See More

StrongBaoshengDadi's Experience

I enjoy using B4X. Never found it easier to create multiplatform apps. See More

ShrewdKuninotokotachi's Experience

Continuously improving to fit my present and future needs See More

SophisticatedGwynApNudd's Experience

Very powerful suite to make mobile apps, desktop apps, server side apps and web apps. I love and big thanks for this suite, I get better job for make some apps with it! See More

proftic1617 ejaf's Experience

-A great set of tools to use and abuse ... in several areas. -a great forum with lots of people moved by the same reason: b4X -A super responsible for the development ... See More

Aeric Poon's Experience

I found B4X very intuitive for beginners and experts to produce high quality apps in a very short of time. Developers can focus on their project. It is really easy to get started and build any project with B4X. See More

TactfulHomados's Experience

Excellent See More

InquisitiveIkaRoa's Experience

It is a lot easier to use than traditional tools See More

Giorgio MyA's Experience

Smooth transition to mobile application development, without the complexities of other tools and with a lightweight environment. See More

DecisiveProvidentia's Experience

Gran Comunidad, facil y rapida la implementación de soluciones empresariales. See More

徐力航's Experience

More than 8 years. With B4X, developing apps is never that easy. See More

ImpartialRyujin's Experience

Excellent... See More

MerryJuksakka's Experience

Powerful , reliable See More

ImpartialBorlung's Experience

I'm using this Toolset to develop powerful Applications for Android, Windows and Arduino since a few years and never had to stop because of limitations. All I needed to do in the past was possible in a incredible short time. See More

CulturedHuttellurra's Experience

Very simple and good See More

ResourcefulJacawitz's Experience

Super easy to build apps. See More

See All

The Best 1 of 23 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for B4X

My Recommendation for B4X

A very active forum where you can find any issue you have, and quick answers to new ones

Lack of B4W real Web app

A highly motivated program author who is very active in the forums

Only for Windows

Create easy, fast cross-platform views with less code

Java-dependent Desktop Development

Very easy to use and powerful for IoT

The documentation and examples and tutorials are not up to date

Live code swapping

Powerful general purpose programming tool

No complexities compared with other tools

The best all round

Erel has much passion for his tool

Many informative video tutorials

Many code examples of fully working apps for free

Large user community

RAD

Tightly integrated framework

Almost everything is free and complete

22 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Lazarus

My Recommendation for Lazarus

Cross Platform

Buggy

Free alternative to Delphi

Offline

My Recommendation for Quasar Framework

My Recommendation for Quasar Framework

Designed from the outset for desktop & mobile

My Recommendation for Flutter

My Recommendation for Flutter

Hand coding UI

Instantly preview change made to the code (Hot reload)

Still in development

Supported by Google

Does not support 32-bit iOS devices

Cross-platform development for iOS and Android (with Web and MacOS support for Flutter in tech preview)

Only supported by mobile and web

Limited libraries

My Recommendation for Web-based application

My Recommendation for Web-based application

No integration to the desktop

Accessible by a web browser

Extra effort may be required to make things look native on each platform

Easy to develop

Client needs an internet connection to access your app

Lightweight

My Recommendation for Xojo

My Recommendation for Xojo

Easy to use

No Android support

Compiled apps are a major pro. The community is very helpful.

Too many bugs

Very easy to learn, cross-platform compilation often requires just a click

Small company so can be down or bought at any time

Nice to have back end code that can be shared for Web apps as well as Desktop apps

Limited resources for learning available

If you have bought a license you can use it for the rest of your life

Subscription-based/Not free

Standalone dev tool, you don't need a cloud to use it

Targets not always 100% percent compliant with platform standards

Nice to have back end code that can be shared for Web, Desktop & iOS apps

Easy to get in touch with the developers

Free to try, you pay only when you compile for a platform

It's been alive since 1998

Direct access to the CEO and the entire engineering and support staff.

Their forum is busy and extremely responsive.

Running a debug instance of your app on Windows while the IDE is on Mac is a great way of working.

Very helpful books about different themes

My Recommendation for GitHub Electron

My Recommendation for GitHub Electron

Microsoft

Relatively low barrier to entry

Extra effort may be required to make things look native on each platform

Has a built in packager which allows you to package web apps

Looks and feels like an alien

Mobile platforms not supported