Best App Development Software & App Builders

Whether you build an app for your business or your clients, you must ensure it is well-featured, user-friendly, and launched at the right time. The best app builder can make that easy for you.

The demand for application development is escalating on a large scale. From buying groceries to finding properties, applications are used everywhere; the primary reason is mobility and digitalization. You can use applications from anywhere and everywhere.

Whether you are a startup, an established mobile app development company, or a mobile app developer, this buyers' guide to mobile app development software is for you. Here, we have covered the most significant aspects of app development tools so that you can make a smart purchase decision. To further clarify, here are the top reasons your business needs an application to succeed.

• Increases Customer Engagement
  Applications can enable direct communication between the organization and its customers. Users who access your business application choose you over your competitors. To take advantage of that, you can consistently inform your customers about the new updates and offers you offer through push notifications. A business application makes your customers feel more connected to your business.
   
• Ensures Customer Loyalty
  When customers search for a product or service on a search engine like Google, they may encounter many businesses. Still, when they download your business app and look at your catalog only, their chances of buying from you increase. At the same time, a loyalty program can be introduced to your customers through your business application, encouraging them to earn points on purchases, which can be redeemed later in the form of discounts at the time of future purchases.
   
• Encourages Higher Conversions
  If the proper ASO (Application Search Optimization) strategies are applied, your business application will likely achieve higher online visibility. Moreover, these days, customers want to complete all their tasks quickly and at their fingertips, whether online shopping or paying bills. Thus, your business application is your direct marketing tool, which can encourage higher conversions.
   
• Builds Brand Reputation
  A business application can build your brand reputation if it offers valuable features to your customers. The higher the number of customers involved with your business app, the higher the chances of making them inclined toward your business. Nowadays, customers consider brands with their business apps reputed.

A great application can boost your revenue, but what if your business application fails to impress your audience? A business that does not create value for its customers is useless. So, what are the characteristics of successful apps?

Whether you are in an online retail business, a service provider, social networking, or any other business, the qualities below in your application can add value to your target audience and grow your business.

• Appealing Design: Your brand can be differentiated from your competitors by the look, design, and feel it provides to the users. An attractive design for your business app can attract your audience and ensure customer retention.
• Platform-Friendly: With so many devices available, if your business app does not work on multiple platforms, it might not yield the expected conversions. To make your business app successful, you must ensure it is platform-friendly and easily accessible to the audience.
• User-Friendly: People lack the time and patience to learn how to use complicated applications. To make your business app successful, you must ensure it is incredibly user-friendly.
• Engaging: Many people download the app on their devices and quickly uninstall it if they don't find it exciting and engaging enough. You must engage your customers with consistent notifications and updates to stay in business.
• Affordable: In the world of free apps, if you charge your customers a high fee to download your business app or quote higher prices for your products and services, it may be a turn-off for your business application. Keep your costs affordable to your customers to win their loyalty.
• Ratings & Reviews: The ratings and reviews about your business app on the app store significantly affect the downloads. Spreading positive word of mouth and creating good momentum about your business app ensures its success.

There are six basic steps to create an application for a business, as given below -

• Analyzing the Idea
  You have an excellent idea and want to turn it into an application. However, you must ask yourself: Will that idea benefit your target audience? Thorough market research can answer this question, and if the idea is feasible, it can be converted into an application.
   
• Preparing Wireframes
  At this stage, you know what your app will look like and its features. You must also have decided on the scope of work and determined the tasks to be done in-house and to be outsourced. So, it is time to prepare a wireframe showing the application's features and how users would navigate it. These would also provide a clear picture of the time and budget to complete the application development project.
   
• Designing
  Now that you have figured out your application's requirements, time, and budget, it is time to start designing the exact layout of all the application screens. It is always better to have a unique UI for your application that matches your brand identity. Your brand recognition and reputation depend on your application's UI; thus, it becomes vital to keep it aesthetically appealing.
   
• Developing
  Once the design is complete, it is time to get into the technicalities of the application. At this stage, the application developers must use their coding skills and experience to achieve functionality and gain a competitive advantage for your business. Your business users expect a flawless experience while using your business application, and thus, you need to ensure that your application launch is bug-free and platform-friendly.
   
• Testing
  How confident you are about your business application's functionality doesn't matter. It is always preferable to go through several rounds of testing before introducing it to the world. If, in any case, the application launches with several bugs, you may get many negative reviews, and that may harm your business. Moreover, using the concept of A/B testing in applications, the developers can determine the best version of the application, which can win maximum conversions. Thus, testing is one of the most critical phases of the application development process.
   
• Launching
  Sparking widespread downloads becomes crucial after designing, creating, and refining your application. A successful app launch demands digital marketing strategies such as ASO (Application Search Optimization) and social media marketing. Without awareness of your launched application, the effort and resources invested in its development may be wasted. Therefore, launching the app and motivating users to embrace it is truly meaningful.
   
• Post-Launching
  You cannot be sure about the application's success even after a grand launch and getting users to download it. The challenge of sustaining your business application starts here. It would be best to keep your audience consistently engaged with the app. Also, you must analyze and monitor usage, check user reviews, and respond to them. This will help you fix bugs and crashes in your application and improve the user experience.

The answer to this question depends on three different conditions.

Are you a business entrepreneur looking forward to launching your business app?

If yes, you need to hire a team of application developers or outsource the entire app development project, which can be time-consuming and expensive.

Are you an app development company with too many app development projects?

If yes, meeting deadlines may become difficult, resulting in dissatisfied clients, degrading company reputation, and financial loss.

Are you a newbie app developer or a freelancer?

If yes, a lack of experience and a skilled team of developers may make developing a flawless and professional application difficult.

Regardless of the conditions mentioned above, using app builder software would be a wise decision to make the entire app development process easy, effective, and profitable in terms of cost, effort, and time.

Yes, the market is flooded with many mobile app development solutions, and as all claim to be the best, it becomes difficult to judge the perfect one for your business. This buyer's guide has compiled information to help you pick the right app builder software.

Mobile app development software helps develop computer programs used in different business areas. Applications are required to automate and streamline a business's processes, whether accounting, managing human resources, maintaining customer relationships, providing information, collecting payments, or selling online. An app builder process includes gathering requirements, designing wireframes, testing, deployment, and integration. Mobile app creation software makes the entire application development process easy and helps the application succeed in revenue generation.

Integrated Development Environment

Mobile app-building software commonly includes a Graphic User Interface (GUI) for editing source code, compiling, deploying, and debugging. This allows app developers to speed up programming and debug code easily, helping them maximize their productivity.

Code-Free Development

Much mobile application development software includes features like drag-and-drop, visual interfaces, and other wizards, allowing even non-technical developers to develop apps without coding.

Templates

The app builder includes pre-built templates, allowing developers to create applications for everyday use cases such as banking, shopping, field service, etc.

Testing Hardware Compatibility

This functionality of the app maker allows developers to check whether the application they develop will work appropriately with multiple devices.

Synchronization of Data

The mobile app development platforms help automate data transfers and coordinate synchronization across applications, providing the benefit of effortlessly developing apps with standard features.

API

API stands for "Application Programming Interface." It allows developers to develop and communicate with other applications, databases, and back-end services.

Analytics

The analytics functionality of app builder software allows you to gather data about how users respond to your application and take improvement measures if required.

The types of development tools depend on the devices they support. Some app development platforms can help develop apps that work on multiple operating systems. In contrast, some are Android or iOS app makers restricted to a single platform. Below is a brief explanation of the types of app maker software.

Native Apps Development

Native app development software allows developers to build apps for a specific operating system, further classified as iOS, Android, and Windows. Using native app development, developers must code separately to develop applications that work on different operating systems.

Hybrid Apps Development

Hybrid app development software allows developers to create apps on multiple devices and platforms. These tools are based on technologies like Xamarin, Sencha Touch, Ionic, etc. You don’t need to buy Android or iPhone app development software separately. 

Web Apps Development

Web apps need a browser to run. Web app creator software helps developers create apps that run on web browsers using CSS, HTML5, and JavaScript. The most prominent examples of web apps include online retail stores, auction sites, webmail applications, etc.

Mobile app development software offers many benefits that include the following -

Quick Development

The primary reason is using mobile app development software. The mobile app maker software automates the code-writing process, facilitating the app developers to develop the apps quickly and bring them to the storefronts. 

Easy to Integrate Data

Integrating the data with external databases and back-end services can be difficult. Application development software simplifies integrations, including user-friendly APIs that integrate data easily.

Coding Skills Are Not Necessary

Mobile app development software allows users to create applications quickly, even without programming skills. Software tools include templates and visual interfaces.

Allows Usability Testing

App development tools can integrate with software development kits for iOS, Android, and other platforms. This helps test the application's usability before it is launched, giving the developers a chance to solve any design and functionality issues.

Enhances User Experience

App usability depends on the user experience it provides. The mobile app development tools include various features that allow developers to focus on enhancing the user interface, ultimately leading to improved workflows and user experience.

Rapid App Development

Rapid app development involves code-free technologies, including visual wizards, drag-and-drop interfaces, readymade templates, etc., which can speed up the entire process. This method of app development enables developers to deploy minimal technical skills. It is thus suitable for marketing and customer service professionals, helping them launch their apps quickly and stay competitive.

Application Performance Management (APM)

Application Performance Management (APM) is a mobile metric Google integrated in 2016. It lets users eliminate problems that could slow down the app's performance. APM helps boost the application's overall performance and thus has become a preferred tool for app testing.

Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)

Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) platforms include app security, managing finances, and maintaining the application. Businesses use them to streamline business processes through mobile computing. They enable employees to exchange data, applications, and information over mobile devices, enhancing organizational productivity and efficiency.

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

Integration Platform as a Service allows the integration of on-premise apps with cloud applications and vice versa. It enables developers to deploy these apps without managing any hardware requirements. All the essential data can be accessed and worked on securely on the cloud, lowering the development cost and making the applications extremely user-friendly.

Cross-Platform Development

The mobile app creator software you choose should allow you to create cross-platform apps, including iOS, Android, Windows, and responsive web apps. New devices are introduced daily, working on different operating systems. You must ensure that your app builder allows you to create an application that works on other platforms with a single code. This way, you don’t need to invest separately in an Android or iOS app builder.

Pre-Installed Templates & Visual Editor

The pre-installed templates and visual editors, including components like Ionic, AngularJS, Bootstrap, HTML5, etc., can help users develop applications without coding skills or experience. The visual editor makes app development easy with drag-and-drop functionality. Moreover, you only need to select the template instead of coding to create the application from scratch.

Customization & Advanced Development

Not all businesses are the same, so your application may require some customization or advanced features. The app maker should allow you to include third-party plugins, write CSS and Javascript codes, and export customized themes to develop the applications precisely as you want them.

Application Testing & Deployment

The mobile app creation software you select should allow you to share the application link with other mobile users to test your application without downloading it. It should also facilitate distributing the tested application to different app stores so you can launch it successfully.

Analytics

Your mobile app builder should provide an analytical report about how many users downloaded and used your application. It should also allow you to retrieve user feedback, enabling you to improve the application and ensure its success in the future.

User-Friendliness

This is an essential requirement of any mobile application development software. Developing apps using mobile app builder software should be accessible to non-technical users. So, ensure that the mobile application creation tool you choose is highly user-friendly, allowing your team of developers to start developing apps quickly and easily.

Security

While creating applications, many crucial pieces of information and data are being used and stored. Ensure the mobile app creator software you selected includes high-end security features to avoid malicious acts or data loss.

Hosting

App builder software can be either cloud-hosted or require on-premise hosting. The benefit of opting for cloud-hosted mobile app creation software is that you don’t need to use your server, but at the same time, it may not be scalable enough to fit your requirements in the future. In contrast, with an on-premise app builder, you can completely control its features and customize it according to your requirements.

Scalability

A mobile app builder software should be able to expand to fit even your future requirements. A stagnant app builder software tool can become obsolete quickly, and then you will have to reinvest in other software, which can be an unnecessary financial burden for your business.

Support

Support is one of the most important aspects to look for. Can the mobile app builder software vendor you have chosen provide prompt support and help you solve your queries? Review user reviews to determine whether you have selected the proper mobile app creator software.

The cost of a mobile app builder depends on the platforms it supports and the features it provides. Mobile app development software ranges from $2 to $1500 per month. Select app builder software that suits your budget and the required features. For example, Appmakr can cost you $2 monthly, and Wave Maker at $1500. You need to check their features carefully, as investing additionally for the features you will not use will cost you more unnecessarily.

If you are uncomfortable paying monthly for the app builder software you will use for a long time, you can choose WhiteSource, which costs $4200 a year, or Sencha, which costs $1199 a year. If your budget is low, you can also select Scriptcase, which would cost you only $349 annually.

There are also app development solutions that you can purchase at one-time charges. For example, DHTMLX can cost you $1169, and Zend Server at $240. Just pay once, and you are free from the hassle of paying for your app creation software regularly.

And, If investing is not on your to-do list, you can consider free and open-source app builder software like Buildfire.Js, Apache Cordova, etc., to build the customized applications you require.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have been the center of attention for the last few years due to their significant breakthroughs in new mobile application creation software technologies. Integrating AI and ML with applications can make them brighter and save app developers a lot of manual effort, time, and money, thus helping businesses grow in revenue generation.

Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is a record-keeping technology behind the Bitcoin network. Considering the application development software, blockchain technology builds many payment apps to provide high-end security during transactions. 

Increased Use of Wearable Apps

The increased use of wearable devices like smartwatches, fitness bands, etc., has also evolved the demand for applications. The users now require applications that support wearable technology. The developers now need to understand the demands of the users and ensure that their application integrates well with wearable devices. 

Chatbots

It has been predicted that chatbot adoption will increase exponentially by 2020. Users now appreciate chatbots for quick answers and round-the-clock availability. To stay competitive, app developers must ensure that chatbots integrate with their applications in cases like online shopping, food delivery, cab services, etc. 

IoT

Using IoT technology, people can control non-IT equipment using mobile applications. This technology has evolved with time and has now become an essential part of users' lives. Application development companies must adopt and integrate this technology into their app development projects to stay competitive.

Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) provide real-world experiences through applications. The Pokemon Go game is one of the most known examples of augmented reality in applications. Due to its success, many app development companies are now using AR and VR technologies in their applications to increase downloads and revenue for their businesses.

Visual comparison of top products (Flutter vs. Android Studio vs. Zoho Creator vs. Azure vs. Mendix) considering the latest features like AI, ML, low-code, no-code, PWAs, etc.