An Ultimate Guide to Mobile App Development Tools: Discover Your App Idea’s True Potential

Globally, there are now more than six billion smartphone users, and these numbers are forecast to grow further in the upcoming years.

Increasing smartphone usage has led companies to realize that mobile app development can effectively capture users’ attention and retain them for an extended period of time.

Unlike the traditional way of building apps, there is now a simple way to do so, thanks to the introduction of mobile app development tools.

Mobile app developer tools ease the development journey by offering developers access to various IDEs, templates, API, data synchronizations, analytics, code-free deployment, and so on.

Due to the broad availability of app development tools, developers often combat finding the best tools that elucidate the development journey and help you secure the desired level of functionality.

This blog got a list of the best mobile app development tools categorized depending on their use case.

So, let’s get started.

Top Mobile App Development Tools

Here is a curated list of top mobile app development tools along with their different features:

Mobile App Test Tools

Mobile app test tools are meant to ease the developer’s journey of evaluating the performance of the mobile application under different loads. The use of these tools for mobile app testing reduces the amount of time needed to test an application, as well as the likelihood of a human error occurring during the testing process.

1. Appium: An Open Source Mobile App Testing Framework

Appium is one of the best testing tools that allows mobile app developers to test native, hybrid, and mobile web apps with great comfort. Regardless of your programming language or framework, Appium allows you to test app coding, backend APIs, and databases.

Appium is driven by the WebDriver protocol and lets you find the bugs in your Android, iOS, or Windows apps conveniently without including the SDKs and recompilation of your mobile app.

Features:

• No dependency on a specific language and framework to write tests for your application
• GUI wrapper to ease the process of writing test
• Easy set-up process
• Selenium WebDriver API and language-specific client libraries

2. Ranorex: Test Automation Tool for GUI Testing

Ranorex is one of the most fortunate low-code/no-code functional UI test automation tools. Furthermore, the tool can also be used with other app testing tools that you’re already using to expand the testing capabilities of the framework.

The framework allows the app developers to test a variety of applications starting from desktop testing, web testing, mobile testing, and test design.

Features:

• The broad range of automation tools to ease the process of data automation from newbies to professional
• Industry-leading support for all your testing needs
• Scalability is assured to combat the increased demand of the users
• Record and replay functionality
• Customizable test results reporting

3. Eggplant: Low Code Platform to Make Mobile App Testing Easy

Eggplant is an agile test automation tool that allows mobile app developers to efficiently test mobile applications to get more accurate results.

Model-based testing is used by Eggplant to forecast how a mobile application will perform under different scenarios. Furthermore, the tool is powered by AI to simplify the testing process.

Features:

• AI-augmented mobile application testing
• Continuous testing to achieve the goal of DevOps speed
• Robotic process automation
• Automate much of the application regression testing
• Reduces the scope for manual QA tasks and errors

Mobile App Analytics Tools

It is essential to measure the performance of mobile applications on a regular basis. Mobile app analytics tools go a long way to keep track of the usage of the application such as app downloads, unique users, app spending time, and so on.

1. Google Analytics for Mobile Apps

Google Analytics is one of the most popular free-to-use mobile app analytics tools available today. Known for improving marketing ROI and understanding customer journeys, the platform provides a great deal of insight into the customer journey.

The tool is powered by Google’s machine-learning algorithm and lets you dig the valuable insights from your business data. The easy-to-use user interface of the tool makes it easy for mobile app developers to begin with the tool.

Features:

• Predicting analytics capabilities
• Proactive insights to detect and surface the actionable insights
• Real-time reporting
• App monetization reports

2. Firebase

Firebase is yet another mobile app analytics tool from Google. The tool comes free of cost and lets you receive unlimited app analytics.

The firebase SDK enables the mobile app developers to set certain measurement events and whenever those events are met, a notification is sent to the app developers. Having this benefit results in measuring the events that matter to your business’s success.

The tool is compatible to work with both Android and iOS mobile apps, therefore you can integrate it with any of your mobile applications.

Features:

• Generate more than 500 distinct events at no cost
• Ability to define the custom events that matter most to the success of your business
• Real-time analytics
• Keep track of the app crash data

3. UXCam

UXCam is the leading mobile app analytics platform that allows mobile app developers to receive fast, contextual and high-fidelity app analytics.

The tool can be easily amalgamated with any mobile application and enable the developers to automatically capture the continuous mobile app integration. The tool even allows the developers to adopt the UX feedback to make sure the app never fails to deliver awe-inspiring results.

Features:

• 360 degrees view of your application user behavior
• Driven by the legally compliant architecture
• Team dashboard to let developers access the data in one place
• Get in-depth visualization of app technical issues

Mobile App UI Design Tools

The importance of a rich user interface cannot be overstated. Mobile app UI design tools let the developers create an optimized user experience that will result in a positive customer experience.

1. Sketch

Sketch is one of the highly accredited mobile App UI design tools that give you access to all the resources required to design pixel-perfect design from scratch. The tool got you covered throughout the entire process from the prototype to creating the app user interface.

The tool makes the process of collaboration a lot easier. By offering real-time collaboration Sketch allows two designers to save work together in real-time on the same document.

Features:

• Native macOS editor to help designers create the Intuitive UI using the Mac
• Choose from the availability of hundreds of plugins
• Accessibility to several variables and OpenType fonts
• Having the ability to test prototypes quickly

2. Figma

Figma is yet another cloud-based design tool that is used by web app developers to create user interfaces that are visually striking. Collaboration is made more rewarding through the use of the tool, which connects all the designers involved in the design process together. Using Figma designers can create an interactive design flow with live collaboration. The tool also makes it easy to integrate the animations into the design.

Features:

• Plugins to automate and improve the design workflow
• Developers can create customized private plugins to meet their unique needs
• Easy exports to facilitate designers extracting their creations in the format they want
• The platform allows the designers to access their creations anywhere using the internet
• Instant arc designs

3. Marvel

Marvel is yet another cloud-based mobile app UI design tool that allows developers to work in a centralized manner to create the user interface. The tool is intended to be used by a large team that requires several designers to work together. In essence, the Marvel UI design platform has access to all the core functionalities required to create wireframes, prototypes, or even the complete user interface for your mobile application.

Features:

• Provide access to the millions of assets, stock photos, and icons
• Allows the developers to sync designs from the scratch
• Prompts the cross-company collaboration
• Prototype testing
• Enable the developers to capture the user’s high-quality feedback on the project

Mobile App Mockup Tools

Before the development of the application begins, markups are the best way to demonstrate the design. By doing so, you will be able to let the client know what the final design will look like and help you to gain valuable client feedback.

1. Adobe XD

Adobe XD is one of the leading mobile app mockup tools that allows developers to share ideas and concepts more conveniently.

The framework allows you to create beautiful mockups from scratch at blazing-fast speed. By allowing the 3D transformation, the framework enables the developers to take their mockups to the next level.

Features:

• Extensive collection of more than 300+ plugins that can be integrated into your application
• Let your device images be turned into the 3D transforms
• Simple drag and drop function to let you create duplicate elements with ease
• Content-aware layout

2. InVision

InVision is considered to be one of the best mobile app wireframe tools. By offering the pre-built templates, you will be able to smoothly create the wireframe for your application. By offering a multiplayer whiteboard to enable the team to collaborate in real time. Therefore teams create the mockups and allow them to share internally with your team or client to get feedback on them.

Features:

• Multiplayer whiteboard to enable teams to work together in the collaboration
• Freehand centralized the entire workflow to make sure your project is done efficiently
• InVision can be integrated with a variety of tools to ease your wireframe design

Final Take

Mobile app development tools are becoming an increasingly important part of any successful app development project. Top mobile app development agencies can help you pick the best tool for the different needs of the project.

If you’re wondering which app development company to choose, then you can consider checking out the App Development Agencies’ list of top mobile app development companies.

Frequently Asked Question

1. What are mobile app development tools?

A mobile app developer’s tool can be referred to as a piece of software that primarily offers the developers access to a variety of resources that will help in building native as well as cross-platform app development.

2. Which tool is the best for Android and iOS mobile application development?

Mobile app development tools that allow the developers to simultaneously develop mobile applications that will work on both Android and iOS simultaneously are called cross-platform app development tools. Some of these tools are mentioned below:

• React Native
• Ionic
• Flutter
• Xamarin
• Android Studio
• XCode
• Visual Studio

1. What are low-code mobile app developers’ tools?

In the nutshell, a low-code platform is a kind of visual app development environment that allows developers to develop mobile applications using drag-and-drop functionality without writing chunk lines of code.