There is one more tool: Tiggr. Tiggr <a href="http://(http://gotiggr.com)” target=”_blank”>(http://gotiggr.com) is a cloud service for building HTML5 and native mobile apps. Tiggr uses jQuery Mobile, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and PhoneGap. The app is built inside a visual builder, connected to any cloud service (REST), tested in browser or device, and then exported as mobile Web or native (Android, iOS).

What about just Adobe AIR as-is, without Flex? That produced the an app that was the top iPad game for several weeks (Machinarium). Bundling it with Flex is, well, just wrong.

Hi Max and David,

I came across Tiggr in my research and it looks like a good cloud based app building tool – it will definitely get a mention the final report. Unfortunately we are not able to cover all products as the long list of cross platform tools numbers over 50. This provides just a flavour of the breadth cross platform tools out there that play a part in cross platform development including frameworks, cross compilers, mobile app platforms, IDEs with a range of integrated tools, code wrappers and runtime clients. For that reason we allow partcicipants to nominate their favourite tool, help us understand how these tools are being used, and let us know about their experiences – so get your developer community involved and telling us about Tiggr!

The point that AIR can be used without Flex is taken on board. The rationale for bundling AIR with Flex in this list is similar to the lack of inclusion of Tiggr. AIR is primarily a runtime with a few other handy tools in the SDK. While there is no specific development tool for building AIR applications, Flex and AIR obviously fit together in the list as a more comprehensive cross platform package – please take part in the survey and note that really, AIR is all you need.

Highly relevant is the widely used, native Qt Software framework <a href="http://(http://qt.nokia.com/)” target=”_blank”>(http://qt.nokia.com/) which has heavy investment by Nokia and is used by thousands of customers around the world. This framework is developed in an open source project <a href="http://(http://qt-project.org/),” target=”_blank”>(http://qt-project.org/), is widely used by customers in more than 70 different market segments (with major penetration in screens that reach end users like mobile, automotive, avionic infotainment, ip communications, e-readers and home media devices such as Roku, STBs and OTTs), and is supported commercially by Digia. Qt is available for a range of operating systems and hardware architectures.

I was surprised with the absence of Qt framework among the list.

@Seth +1 for this correction to be made -> Adobe AIR is NOT Adobe Flex.

Flex is just a framework for Actionscript based apps but for most of the AIR apps that will blow your mind and show you what is possible they will built using ActionScript only. Make the correction and I will be sure to contribute and encourage others to do the same.

+ NME http://www.haxenme.org/ – free and open source tool based on haxe ( http://haxe.org ). Flexible and very productive for cross-platform games. Current targets: iOS, webOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and Flash Player.

Gideros Studio <a href="http://(http://www.giderosmobile.com)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.giderosmobile.com) is a Lua based native mobile development environment for iOS & Android. Gideros Studio is well-known with its 1-second testing feature on the target device, an API with more than 480 functions, a GUI IDE and ability to run on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

Hi Mike,

We included Flex as a cross platform development tool from Adobe, but recognise AIR is the meta-platform which enables Actionscript to be used across mobile platforms. Due to space limitations we only put the one tool from Adobe in the list but the questionnaire was intended to allow participants to nominate their favourite tool – we have identified over 60 that qualify as cross platform tools. In part this process is to help us identify what is actually being used by developers in what is a large and rapidly growing market of cross platform tools – and how the available tools are being used. As you note AIR is often used on its own, and your comment is already a contribution to that perspective but we are unable to change the survey once released. We will be looking closely at the relevant Adobe product lineup and the recent changes impacting on it in in the final report.

Qt will also feature in the final report as one of the key cross platform solutions. Looking at Qt initially it seemed that Qt was overly focussed on Nokia platforms and had an uncertain future in the mobile space that we focus on. Looking more deeply, with the size of the developer base using Qt and with solutions emerging from the open source community to enable Qt development for iOS and Android, the prospects for Qt look a lot brighter. With the questionnaire allowing participants to nominate their primary cross platform solution, we have seen significant numbers nominating Qt as their primary tool.

Nice article, thanks. I've posted a write up here about the history and future of cross development toolkits here that might be of additional interest to your readers. You might also want to check out Moai, a framework based on C++ and Lua for mobile game development, sort of like Corona but mainly for games.

Tiggr was renamed to Tiggzi. Its new url location is http://tiggzi.com/home?cid=180294

On page 27, it says at the bottom: "The full list of 100 cross-platform tools that we have… appears below." This is followed by 25 items in a table. Where are the rest?

Also, JUCE ( http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com/juce.php ) and Ultimate++ / U++ ( http://www.ultimatepp.org/www$uppweb$overview$en-… ) are interesting and probably should have been included, in addition to some others here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6559099/altern…

JUCE in particular supports Win/MacOSX/Linux/iOS/Android with the same code base and most of the same capabilities in a C++ code base. GPL or reasonable commercial use. Ultimate++/U++ doesn't seem well supported on mobile yet, but has a BSD license and a good story.

Hi there,

The table on page 27 has four columns and 25 rows – all of which are cross-platform tools, bringing up the total to over 100.

JUCE and Ultimate++ / U++ seems like a tool we should include in the next version of the report!

- Matos