We must have heard, or done a good amount of research even before buying a smartphone in a day. Nonetheless, according to several standards reports, more than 120+ times a day populations are addicted to their phones; where we consider one of the reasons as mobile as it proffers overwhelming sensory experience in our regular lives.

Hence, we are aware of how essential smartphone apps are in daily lives; be they can be used to build connections, acquire information, or to have fun only!

There is a plethora of probability an application waiting to get discovered for every possible human’s necessities. No surprise, the demand for mobile applications has been on rising ever since the smartphone was invented. Considering recent tech evolution, no one on earth doubts the future of mobile app development and so mobile app languages.

Now the time arrives, where you are taking a dive to create a mobile app to allure your potential client’s attention- you gotta focus on choosing the best language for app development or the right app language is essential to build a robust, user-centric, and dynamic app consisting of your business objectives.

Well well well!

Having several sets of mobile development languages to select from, one has to rely on multiple functionality, pros, and cons alongside the vogue of mobile app languages even before jumping on a decision to create a reliable popular mobile application.

Having run through a sort of survey, and curated a list of best programming languages for mobile apps which are the best code for apps will assist the best way to run through a large pool of suitable mobile development languages. Let’s dive deep in;

1. Kotlin

Kotlin is often said to be the advanced version of JAVA – a statistically typed mobile app language used for building modern Android applications and one of the best languages for app development. It has the influence of other available programming languages such as JAVA to build robust cum high-performing apps. Here are a few apps that are built-in Kotlin, Evernote, Coursera, Trello, and others.

Fors:

• The syntax is clean, concise, and perspective to increase team efficiency
• Versatile and Interoperable to easily overrule that shortcoming of JAVA
• Kotlin has full-range of support from Google alongside IDE’s available installation packages consisting of Android and SDK toolkit
• Kotlin simply generates compact, cleaner code, and simple interface as compared to JAVA

Against:

• Kotlin is still a new language in the market which is quite hard to learn, so it’s advisable before you select it from
• Also, it has limited resources of learning which sometimes slow down the learning curve.

2. Swift

Swift is a prospective game-changer mobile app language- which is also an open-source programming language specifically designed to work along with iOS, tvOS, and OS x platforms. Swift mobile app language is flexible, scalable, as well as can easily adapt safer programming patterns to add-up modern features for any such app. Whereas Swift is a way more expressive and fun-loving scripting language having the first industrial systems. A few examples of applications developed in Swift are LinkedIn, Lyft, Hipmunk, and many others.

Fors:

• Swift can be implemented on Cocoa and Cocoa Touch platforms
• It requires less or pretty less maintenance to avoid the bugs of Objective-C
• Managing projects are easier to scale, which is powerful, intuitive, and easy to learn
• Swift has an interactive and expressive syntax that has multiple features for seamless lightning fat software

Against:

• Swift can be still counted as pretty young for the development of such heavy apps, and considered an unstable app language as its new in this competitive market which requires regular updates on a period basis

3. JavaScript

JavaScript is one the best for cross-platform app development, mobile app development used for various platforms. JavaScript smoothly run-through in other environments, outside browsers, which can be compiled from a wide array of such programming languages. Hence, one of the best programming languages for mobile apps is JavaScript only.

Fors:

• JavaScript is a flexible and versatile language that can be used in many ways via Node js
• It’s faster probably on the client-side browsing which doesn’t need to be complicated
• JavaScript has not set the standard and plenty of room for variation having straight-forward to work with an easy control mechanism
• Plenty of room available for Variation.

Against:

• Can be vulnerable and exploited for malicious purposes in varieties of cases
• Have some browser support issues in some cases

4. C++

This programming language is considered the best programming language for mobile apps. C++ in general has an object-oriented language along with generic low-level memory manipulation features; mostly used for Android apps, Native mobile app development. C++ is a GUI-based set of applications having real-time mathematical stimulation mostly in banking/finance, etc. Well, C++ is well-renowned with Cloud computing apps that can be as quick and adaptable to change hardware or their ecosystem.

Fors:

• Stable, have in-built libraries and compilers to use from
• If you are a master of C++ then learning JAVA, C, And C# will be easy
• No garbage collector that runs in back-ground
• Allows you to take full control, and the app can run on any platform to take advantage of any range of hardware

Against:

• The syntax is complex, have a small set of the standard library
• Most complicated language to get master with
• As the name suggests, object-oriented is quite essential compared with other available languages

5. PHP

If you are talking or even considering a database-accessible programming language, then PHP is one of the most recommended mobile app development languages having open-source, server-side scripting, command-line scripting, and coding applications. PHP is widely being used to develop eCommerce applications, content-rich apps, Dynamic web applications, and of course mobile apps. PHP is the most flexible language which can be easily embedded into HTML/HTML5; some of the websites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Yahoo are built on PHP.

Fors:

• PHP is definitely easy to learn, is platform-independent, and compatible with smooth integration
• Exceptionally excellent with Content-rich apps that can loads quickly even with a slow internet connection, have in-built security features to protect such from complex security threats
• PHP is the route for learners to starts with, which can be helpful for them to learn complex program development swiftly

Against:

• PHP’s open-source readily available functionality sometime exploits to its weakness
• Not ideally suitable for large applications, and difficult to maintain
• Requires better error-handling tactics

6. Python

Python is a widely accepted programming language used for developing web applications, media tools, desktop apps, machine learning, network server, and more add up. Youtube, Instagram, and Pinterest are built-in Python only. This language offers excellent library support having robust integration having enhanced control capabilities. Hence, if you are at all planning to develop your own app for personal/business usage – Python is one of the best languages to keep an eye on.

Fors:

• Easy to use, having an adaptable learning curve, quick to deploy, and excellent at readability
• Python has a high-level programming language primarily used for analyzing, computing scientific, numeric data for software development
• This is one of the most promising yet interactive languages used to build scalable apps and supports GUI applications
• Huge sets of frameworks with flexible nature

Against:

• It has a slow execution time and is not that great with modern mobile application development
• Python is not a supreme choice with memory-intensive tasks
• And it has some drawbacks with data access

7. Objective-C

Objective-C is an extended version of the C language and its general purpose with added features such as Smalltalk-style messaging. Objective-C is a well-updated, mature programming language and is primarily used for macOS, iOS app development, and OS.

Fors:

• Objective-C is easy to learn and used by vast numbers of the developers
• Remarkable numbers of legacy codes are included to support the nest coding style

Against:

• It does not support the latest features that are over then overcome by Swift
• This requires extended coding, and this is actually time-consuming

8. JAVA

Java is an object-oriented and official Android development programming language; it has om-built open-source libraries that are readily available for users to choose from, and it’s easy to handle. Java simply offers the best cross-platform apps, Games, Android apps, server apps, embedded space, and websites.

Fors:

• Java is renowned for code reusability and portability
• Codes run in multiple environments, browsers, virtual machines, and different platforms
• This platform safeguards developers against issues inherent in native code, memory leaks, etc
• JAVA is flexible, versatile, portable, and of course platform-independent programming language
• It has an explicit interface, simplified, and machine-independent language

Against:

• In some cases, bugs may occur while running JAVA in virtual machine-JVM
• It has complex implementation because of poor garbage collection

9. HTML 5

Building web-fronted apps or mobile app development is essential in recent times, and if you are one of those who thinks of it, then the fifth version of HyperText Markup Language – HTML 5 is one of the best ways to choose from.  Well, HTML5 is not a programming language, perhaps a markup language which uses tags to structure and present the content on the webpage. Recent updates of HTML5 include exceptional features such as media elements, multi-platform functionality for distinct programs, and quick market deployment. Google Docs and Google Drive are built in HTML5.

Fors:

• HTML5 is easily compatible with all the browsers and new features, standards already emerge
• It has the in-built capability to support a rich amount of media formats like audio & video and loads faster using local storage or cache
• HTML5 supports CANVAS elements used for embedding applications based on geolocation, offline/online games, dynamic graphics, and animations.

Against:

• A huge amount of coding is required for each platform, and it does not support older versions/systems causing a backward compatibility issue
• It requires a longer time to develop a mobile app as each platform
• Where in case of customization HTML5 adjust the code and the tools of Android and iOS follow back the official SDK

10. Rust

Have you ever wondered about the most loved language in recent times on Stack Overflow? You’re guessing it quite right, it’s Rust.  It is sponsored by Mozilla and has syntax almost like C++ along with compile-time correctness, faster performance, safe memory, and intuitiveness. However, it is useful in time-constrained scenarios in order to develop applications across different fields. Yelp and Dropbox are built in Rust.

Fors:

• Errors easily get caught while compiling the code
• Best programming language for developers to encourage to write optimized high-performance code
• It supports functional yet imperative procedural paradigm, and it safe, and practical language
• Rust is a low-level language that is well-suited for embedded systems

Against:

• Installation is not straightforward and doesn’t have in-built libraries as compared to other languages
• It is difficult to learn/execute for beginners having a steep learning curve

11. Ruby

Ruby is a proficient back-end object-oriented scripting language used in the development of web applications, system utilities, and standard libraries. By that time, Ruby has evolved into a general-purpose, interrupted, and high-level multiple-paradigm programming language. Ruby is a functional language that directly implements the instructions rather than compiling them in machine language. Twitter, Bloomberg, Airbnb, and Shopify are developed in Ruby.

Fors:

• Ruby provides dynamic typing to make changes on the go without affecting the entire set of result
• It allows duck typing which focuses on operations rather than class objects
• Smooth performance, intuitive code quality, garbage-collected and concise; its easy to learn as well as execute for beginners

Against:

• Ruby is considered a sort of slow language which is not that popular for the development of web apps or mobile app development
• Shortage of boot-time and flexibility is quite long
• It has slow runtime speed and low performance as the updates for bugs fixes are slow

12. ActionScript

Action Script is one of the recommended programming languages for Adobe Flash player and Adobe AIR runtime environments and one of the wonderful tools in the tech stack language category. Action Script is an object-oriented programming language simply derived from Hyper Talk- the scripting language for HyperCard. In any case, if you are willing to use Adobe Flash Player on your website or software; then Lua integrates effortlessly with animation or motion in websites to develop video games.

Fors:

• Its 1.0 and 2.0 versions work on the same machine with ease
• It supports custom classes such as external text files structured in a specific way
• Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Air is popular among developers and can be accessible via ActionScript
• Where in for data-based applications and potential robotics – ActionScript is the most suitable programming language to rely on

Against:

• In order to program with the latest version of ActionScript – Flash player 9 or the higher release is essential to deal with
• It required to keep things simple as it would be difficult to demonstrate those complex content

13. Lua

Lua is often known as a lightweight mobile-first enterprise communication channel, a cross-platform multi-paradigm language. It’s in-built messaging for businesses and is instant, secure, and keeps up with developers’ accountabilities. Lua is well-renowned for real-time messaging, dashboards, analytics, easy file sharing, and definitely two-touch conference calling. Now, the question comes up, if you are at all conceptualizing to improve the speed, extensibility, portability, or reliability for your mobile application; then Lua is a perfect fit for an all-in-one set of your necessities.

Fors:

• Lua is one of the faster programming languages that uses the least amount of runtime memory
• It requires the smallest memory footprint for bundling and is helpful for easy error-handling
• It reduces API and lowers the learning curve

Against:

• Even though the documentation has been improvised, it is still a bit inadequate thoroughly
• Lua is not easy to learn and execute for beginners
• It has a very poor garbage collection capacity

14. SQL

Structured Query Language is useful for assessing, manipulating, and communicating the standard database for most applications. This is designed in order to meet specific standards for both ANSI and ISO, and its extensive support for both on a community and even for enterprise level. For relational data model and referential integrity consisting of data, data query, data access control, and data manipulation and with well-structured standards SQL is widely used in business intelligence tool platforms.

Fors:

• SQL is powerful yet one of the most popular query languages
• It is optimized for a large number of table rows, supports at many different database choices
• It allows users to handle a large number of transactions in a single query
• It has high availability as well as consistency of data

Against:

• It’s quite difficult to interface, and complex to add new lines of code in between
• It has a predefined and inflexible data model
• It only allows to run on one server and so if speed improvised, hardware required to be upgraded
• SQL has a lack of partition tolerance

15. Dart

Dart is one of the renowned programming languages especially designed for client development. It offers the most productive programming language for multi-platform development, which can be paired with a flexible execution runtime platform for mobile app frameworks. Eventually, Dart started getting attention in the back of 2017 at a time when Google officially announced Flutter Beta for cross-platform mobile app development; well then the usage of Dart has been improved drastically.

Fors:

• Easy to learn, as any JavaScript programmer can quickly learn to write code in Dart
• Easy availability of documentation
• High performance, stable, and it can be used to build real-time applications

Against:

• It has very limited resources available online, hard to even find solutions to occurred problems
• It’s quite new in the market and rarely used in the market
• Absence of native support

16. Golang

The latest tech stack is bulking up on the horizon, with a new competition to challenge the throne mastered by JavaScript and Python. Golang is being made by Google mainly to advance the cause, especially of functional programming. Well, Golang has its own supremacy and has built up a mass following within a short time and already made it the top language to learn by StackOverflow via 62.7% of tech professionals.

Fors:

• Faster execution
• Scalable, easy to learn, And the comprehensive tool
• It offers peace of mind considering Virtual machine dependencies
• Efficient garbage collection capability
• Golang has little Facets
• Fast compilation with good error messages to understand
• Support of standard and third-party libraries

Against:

• Error-handling is sort of idiotic in Golang, that can bloat code quite especially when one needs to make something bulletproof
• Not so powerful as a general-purpose language
• Weaker abstraction support from the community
• Golang is explicit and imperative

There are plenty of programming languages for different amounts of tasks, wherein selecting the right language for the mobile development languages is literally different from choosing one to learn from. Certainly, people will keep you in a state where there is no choice and that all languages are equal, and developed to fulfill all the purposes.

Several factors will eventually help one individual to choose the best language:

• Targeted audience/platform
• Language’s elasticity
• Individual language’s performance, support, and community
• Final Agenda behind building a mobile application, and
• Availability and efficiencies of the programmers

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, constant evolution is nature’s law even in the world of programming, It consists of Some everlasting languages such as JAVA, JavaScript that have eventually earned eternal recommendations in the list. Wherein, some other programming languages like Kotlin and R have risen at a competitive pace and made it to the list of the most well-known programming languages.

Hence, one should always be readily available with a list of questions to ask, factors to keep an eye on, and the above-listed benefits and disadvantages; this will assist one in making sure to choose sensible decisions regarding the languages. At last, Selecting the right mobile programming language will allow you to develop agile mobile applications which will weather the changes relying on the business’s future necessities.

This is high time for you to dive in; so what are you waiting for?

This article will help you choose the best suitable mobile app language and give your business the most requirements to attain more substantial success.

Do share your thoughts, and will try to address them, if there could be needed to have quick chat; we’d be more than happy to address it.