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A comparison of 10 leading tools for
multi-platform app development
October 2013
Detailed Cross PlatformTool Benchmarking 2013
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Detailed Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013
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About research2guidance
research2guidance is a strategy advisor and market research company. We concentrate on the
mobile app eco-system. Our service offerings include:
App Strategy: We help our clients in and outside of the mobile industry to develop their app
market strategy. Our consulting advisory projects are based on a set of predefined project
approaches including: App strategy development, App Evaluation, App Market Segment Sizing,
App Governance and App Marketing Spend Effectiveness.
App Market Reports: Our app market reports explore the major trends and developments
affecting the app markets. Separate research papers provide both general and specific coverage of
the market. The reports contain key insights for companies looking to enter or deepen their
engagement with the mobile applications market, providing data and analysis on all relevant
aspects of the market to ease investment decision-making.
App Market Surveys: We leverage our 70,000 app eco-system database to conduct surveys and
reports for our clients.
research2guidance , Berlin, Germany, +49 (0)30 609 89 33 60
www.research2guidance.com
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Related reports and services:
Click on the covers to get more information
Need help with finding the right Cross-Platform Tool ? Use our standardized CP
Tool selection process to find the right tool for your app projects.
Contact the analyst Joachim Thiele-Schlesier: +49 (0) 30 609 89 33 60,
Cross-Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013: “The hidden champions of the app economy”
Marmalade Profile: “Service offering and user rating”
Xamarin Profile: “Service offering and user rating”
Corona SDK Profile: “Service offering and user rating”
Unity 3D Profile: “Service offering and user rating”
?
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CONTENT
1. Key takeaways ............................................................................................................................................................ 5
2. Benchmarking methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 8
3. The cross platform tool coverage of the benchmarking study .................................................................................. 9
3.2. Air by Adobe ............................................................................................................................................................. 10
3.3. JQuery Mobile by JQuery Foundation ...................................................................................................................... 11
3.4. Marmalade by Marmalade ....................................................................................................................................... 11
3.5. Unity 3D by Unity Technologies ............................................................................................................................... 11
3.6. Xamarin by Xamarin ................................................................................................................................................. 12
3.7. Titanium by Appcelerator ........................................................................................................................................ 12
3.8. Corona SDY by Corona Labs ..................................................................................................................................... 12
3.9. Sencha Touch by Sencha .......................................................................................................................................... 13
3.10. Construct 2 by Scirra ................................................................................................................................................ 13
4. User background comparison .................................................................................................................................. 14
5. Usage intensity comparison ..................................................................................................................................... 15
6. Comparison of targeted industries and app categories ........................................................................................... 16
7. Cross platform tool complexity comparison ............................................................................................................ 19
8. Support service quality comparison ......................................................................................................................... 22
9. Platform support comparison .................................................................................................................................. 24
10. App project duration and time savings comparison ................................................................................................ 27
11. User satisfaction with tecnology features ................................................................................................................ 29
11.1. Cloud API services .................................................................................................................................................... 29
11.2. Accessibility of device hardware features................................................................................................................ 31
11.3. Accessibility of pre-installed applications ................................................................................................................ 32
12. App Quality benchmarking ....................................................................................................................................... 33
12.1. Design feature comparison ...................................................................................................................................... 33
12.2. Usability comparison against native apps ................................................................................................................ 34
12.3. Performance comparison against native apps ......................................................................................................... 35
12.4. App security comparison ......................................................................................................................................... 37
12.5. App revenue comparison ......................................................................................................................................... 39
13. Cost-performance ratio comparison ........................................................................................................................ 40
14. Appendix .................................................................................................................................................................. 42
About the authors ............................................................................................................................................................. 42
List of figures and tables ................................................................................................................................................... 44
Contact research2guidance .............................................................................................................................................. 45
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1. KEY TAKEAWAYS
Over the course of the last five years, multi-app and multi-platform app publishing have become
common for developers who have become increasingly aware of second-tier platforms like
BlackBerry and Windows. The result has been an increase in complexity, as well as in development
& maintenance costs.
Cross Platform Tools (CP Tools) promise to reduce the complexity and costs it takes to develop
apps for multiple mobile, desktop and other platforms (in-car devices, TV, game consoles).
The CP Tool landscape has grown over the course of the last 2-3 years and it has become
increasingly difficult to select the right platform for an app project or even a portfolio of apps.
This report compares 10 of the most used CP Tools along a set of 16 criteria which span from
platform support to overall cost-efficiency.
The comparison is based on the results of the largest developer survey, with more than 1,000
participants, and was conducted in summer 2013, only addressing the strengths and weaknesses
of CP Tools in the market.
In summary, the results show that CP Tools have a significant impact on development time, costs
and app quality. But there are major differences between the CP Tools, of which every app
developer must be aware of before selecting a CP Tool for his project.
The majority of CP Tools have not made it into the enterprise world. Titanium, Unity 3D, Phone
Gap and JQuery Mobile have the highest share (10%-20%) of users coming from large companies.
CP Tools in the benchmarking can be generally divided into two groups: CP Tools with a focus on
the games industry and generalists. Corona SDK, Marmalade, Unity 3D, Construct2 and AIR have a
focus on game development. CP Tools that cater the games industry are in general of rather high
complexity and thus require a longer time to get used to.
Support channel usage does not show significant differences amongst CP Tools. Users seem to
have similar preferences. In contrast, the quality of the support services is rated very differently.
Xamarin, AIR and Sencha Touch offer the best support service quality.
Overall, CP Tools are most frequently used for developing mobile apps for Android, iOS and
Blackberry 10. App development for HTML targeting mobile and HTML targeting desktop follow
with distance.
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The highest time-savings for app development can be realized with Unity 3D, Corona SDK and
Xamarin. For all three tools more than 50% of their users were able to develop more than 50%
faster.
CP Tools differ significantly in how intensively developers are using or rating APIs, pre-installed
software and hardware features made accessible by CP Tools.
Across all users of CP Tools, the availability of cloud API services is rated of rather low importance.
AIR and Xamarin clients state the highest satisfaction with cloud API services. 30% of Xamarin
users and 18% of AIR users make extensive use of the services.
Across all CP Tools in the benchmarking, 60% of users regard the accessibility of device hardware
features as “critical”. Xamarin users are the most satisfied with the service of their tool: 69% are
satisfied or very satisfied with the accessibility of device hardware features.
Across all CP Tools, the accessibility of pre-installed applications is rated by 40% of users as
“important”. Xamarin users are the most satisfied with the service. Titanium users are the least
satisfied.
The results for all 3 benchmarked technology features indicate that Titanium users are the most
demanding developers and view technology features most critically. They make the most use of
APIs, device hardware access and pre-installed apps, but are the least satisfied with the offering of
Titanium. On the other hand, Xamarin users tend to rate their tool support the most positively.
In terms of “design features”, AIR and Xamarin apps are rated best by far: 92% of AIR users and
89% of Xamarin users describe their cross-platform apps as good as or even better than native
apps in terms of design.
CP Tools overall are being rated positively by their users for the usability quality of their apps.
Xamarin is leading in usability as well.
Across all CP Tools in the benchmark, performance is the major weakness of cross-platform apps.
Marmalade, Xamarin and Unity 3D apps are rated best. Especially Marmalade users (88%) do not
see their apps as being of a lower quality than apps created with an OS-specific native SDK.
App security is rated the highest for Xamarin and Construct2.
In terms of generated app revenues, all tools are being rated positively compared to native app
development. AIR users rate their apps the highest, followed by Unity 3D and Marmalade users.
Overall, the cost-performance ratio is very high: on average 69% or more of the users rate the
cost-performance ratio “okay” or “good value”. Construct2 and Marmalade cost-efficiency ratings
are the highest, with more than 50% of their users saying that the CP Tool has a good value.
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By comparing user ratings of 10 of the most used CP Tools, the report aims at providing valuable
insights for the selection of the best CP Tool for a specific app project or portfolio.
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2. BENCHMARKING METHODOLOGY
This benchmarking of cross-platform app development tools is based on a global survey conducted
between May and August 2013. More than 1,000 respondents participated and shared their views
on cross-platform app development tools (CP Tools).
Participants come mainly from EU (39%), North America (26%) and Asia (22%), The major CP Tool
user’s country of origin are the USA (15%), Canada (11%), India (11%), Germany (10%) and UK
(6%).
Figure 1: Geographical overview of cross-platform tool users
Tool user survey participants range from individual app developers to IT managers of multi-
national corporations.
39%26%
5%
22%
6%
2%
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Figure 2: Background of cross-platform tool users
3. THE CROSS PLATFORM TOOL COVERAGE OF THE BENCHMARKING STUDY
The benchmarking includes 10 of the most used CP Tools.
All listed CP Tools are integrated development environments (IDE) or toolkits for creation of web
apps.
CP IDEs allow multi-app/multi-platform app development. Most tools concentrate their output on
native apps but some also create web apps. These tools use their own SDK to develop a single
code faster and compile it to meet native requirements. Some CP IDEs specialize in certain genres
(mainly games) and/ or fewer platforms to get better results while others aim to cover as many
operating as possible.
Toolkits for creation of web apps support the development process of web apps and mobile
webpages. Developers can use classical web development language.
The comparison of the 10 CP tools is based on the ratings of their users. The accuracy and
informative value of the results depends on the number of user ratings of a particular CP Tool. The
number of user ratings varies between 10 and 85.
Survey participants by position in the company
Professional developer
58%
Business administrator
/ CXO / Management
21%
IT / telecom administrator
5%
Graphic designer
2%
Student / Learning
developer2%
Other12%
Survey participants by company size
Just me33%
Small business
41%
Medium business
13%
Enterprise13%
n=888
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Table 1: Benchmarked CP Tools and sample sizes
Even lower numbers of user ratings give a good indication of the strengths and weaknesses of a CP
Tool. Tools with user rating numbers below 30 are being marked in grey in the document to
facilitate interpretation of the results.
The following CP Tools have been included:
3.1. PHONE GAP BY ADOBE
Adobe made their initial steps in the CP Tool market by acquiring Phone Gap in 2011. Phone Gap is
a CP IDE and one of the most established CP Tools in the market.
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry 7.1 and lower, Symbian, Bada
App category focus: generalist
Supported features: accelerometer, camera, compass, contacts, file system integration, geo
location, media library, network, data storage, speaker, vibration
3.2. AIR BY ADOBE
Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is a runtime environment for building rich internet applications
using Adobe Flash, Apache Flex, HTML and Ajax. AIR was released in 2008.
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Windows (desktop), OSX (desktop), Facebook,
Blackberry Playbook
App category focus: games, generalist
Supported features: camera, file system integration, geo location, microphone, media library, NFC,
speaker, vibration
CP Tool Vendor Sample Size
Phone Gap Adobe 85
JQuery Mobile JQuery Foundation 57
AIR Adobe 55
Marmalade Marmalade 43
Unity 3D Unity Technologies 38
Xamarin Xamarin 31
Titanium Appcelerator 30
Corona SDK* Corona Labs 23
Sencha Touch* Sencha 14
Construct2* Scirra 10
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3.3. JQUERY MOBILE BY JQUERY FOUNDATION
JQuery Mobile is a touch-optimized web framework aiming for compatibility with a broad variety
of mobile devices. It was developed on top of JQuery by the JQuery foundation and first released
in 2006.
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Blackberry 7.1 and lower,
Symbian, Bada, HTML (targeting mobile)
App category focus: generalist
Supported features: JQuery Mobile offers the full range of HTML5 standards for the supported
platforms
3.4. MARMALADE BY MARMALADE
Marmalade SDK, formerly known as Airplay SDK, was developed by Ideaworks 3D and released in
2008. The vendor is located in London (UK).
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry 10, Windows (desktop), OSX
(desktop), smart TVs
App category focus: games, news and media
Supported features: iOS and Android: accelerometer, geo location, camera, compass, landscape
orientation, microphone, speaker, multi-touch, image library, vibration, contacts, filesystem IO,
calendar, in-app email
3.5. UNITY 3D BY UNITY TECHNOLOGIES
Unity 3D by Unity Technologies, San Francisco (CA) is one of todays most used game engines
worldwide. It was first released in 2005 as an OSX supported game development tool. Today Unity
is a fully cross-platform capable IDE that caters mobile platforms, desktop platforms and consoles.
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Blackberry 10, Ubuntu, Windows
(desktop), Chrome, Facebook, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3
App category focus: games
Supported features: Unity focusses on high performance 3D games that run on the supported
platforms.
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3.6. XAMARIN BY XAMARIN
Xamarin is a start-up, founded in 2011 and located in San Fransisco (CA). It was founded by the
developers of the Mono project. Mono was the parent of Xamarin Studio, part of the 2013-
released Xamarin 2.0.
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, HTML (targeting mobile), OSX
(desktop)
App category focus: generalist
Supported features: accelerometer, geolocation, vibration, camera, multitouch, landscape
orientation, compass, speaker, microphone, NFC, contacts, filesystem IO, calendar, image library,
in-app email, phone, SMS, MMS, speech recognition, maps
3.7. TITANIUM BY APPCELERATOR
Titanium was developed by Appcelerator and first released in 2008. Today it consists of Titanium
Mobile, an application framework for developing mobile apps with web technologies, Titanium
Studio, an open source SDK, Alloy, an Eclipse based IDE, and cloud services.
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Tizen, Windows (desktop), OSX
(desktop)
App category focus: generalist
3.8. CORONA SDY BY CORONA LABS
Corona SDK is a cross-platform IDE first released in 2009. It was developed by Corona Labs, a start
up founded in 2008 and based in Palo Alto (CA).
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, HTML (targeting mobile), OSX
(desktop)
App category focus: games, 2D apps
Supported features: accelerometer, geolocation, vibration, camera, multitouch, landscape
orientation, compass, speaker, microfone, NFC, contacts, filesystem IO, calendar, image library, in-
app email, phone, SMS, MMS, speech recognition, maps
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3.9. SENCHA TOUCH BY SENCHA
Sencha Touch is a Java Script library for building mobile web applications. Sencha, a 2008 start-up,
is based in Redwood City (CA). Sencha Touch is used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500 for
their app projects.
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Blackberry 10, Bada, Kindle Fire,
Chrome, HTML (targeting mobile)
App category focus: generalist
Supported features: Sencha Touch offers the full range of HTML5 standards for the supported
platforms
3.10. CONSTRUCT 2 BY SCIRRA
Construct2 is a HTML5 based drag-and-drop editor for creating games without coding or with
usage of Java Script. It was first released in 2012 by Scirra Ltd.
Supported platforms: Construct 2 creates HTML5 apps that run in browsers, on desktops and web-
capable mobile devices.
App category focus: games
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4. USER BACKGROUND COMPARISON
CP Tool users reach from single developers to employees of multi-national enterprises. Single
developers and small businesses use all ten reviewed CP Tools.
9 out of 10 CP Tools are used by medium businesses as well. The share of medium businesses
using a particular CP Tool varies from 11% (Sencha Touch, Marmalade) to 22% (Phone Gap).
Marmalade has the highest share of users being single developers or coming from small
businesses (89%).
The majority of CP Tools have not made it into the enterprise world. Titanium, Unity 3D, Phone
Gap and JQuery Mobile have the highest share (10%-20%) of users coming from large companies.
Figure 3: CP Tool users by company size
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Phone Gap
Titanium
JQuery Mobile
Unity 3D
Corona SDK
Xamarin
AIR
Sencha Touch
Marmalade
Construct2
Single developer Small business Medium business Enterprise
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5. USAGE INTENSITY COMPARISON
The usage intensity of a CP Tool shows how often a developer uses a CP Tool to deliver an app
project. It is a good indicator for how the requirements of the applications can be realized with a
specific CP Tool.
Usage intensity of the respective CP Tool varies largely. On average CP tools are being used for
around 50% of all app projects.
AIR (ᴓ 69% of apps), Construct2 (ᴓ 47% of apps), Corona SDK (ᴓ 49% of apps), JQuery Mobile (ᴓ
69% of apps), Marmalade (ᴓ 68% of apps), Phone Gap (ᴓ 48% of apps), Sencha Touch (ᴓ 38% of
apps), Titanium (ᴓ 37% of apps), Unity 3D (ᴓ 58% of apps), Xamarin (ᴓ 55% of apps).
Marmalade (58%), AIR (55%) and Unity 3D (50%) have the highest share of users that develop
almost every app with the help of the CP Tool (70%-100%). Titanium (17%) has the lowest share of
users specializing on cross-platform development.
JQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, and Titanium have the highest share of users which make use of the
tool only for a minor share of their app projects (less than 30% of app projects).
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Figure 4: CP Tool usage intensity by share of apps with CP Tool
6. COMPARISON OF TARGETED INDUSTRIES AND APP CATEGORIES
Selecting the right CP Tool also depends on the industry and app category the app publisher wants
to target. CP Tools sometimes offer industry or app category-specific features like design
templates or interfaces to standard software packages that are commonly used within an industry.
The comparison for which industries app developer make use of a CP Tool is a good indicator for
the quality of the industry-specific features of a CP Tool.
Currently CP Tools can be generally divided into two groups: CP Tools with focus on games
industry and generalists. Based on what the CP Tools have been used for, there is no CP Tool that
shows a strength for a certain industry.
The “gaming” tools are Construct2, Marmalade and Unity 3D with more than 60% of all app
projects being game projects. AIR and Corona SDK also seem to offer good app development
support for games as around 35% of all app projects resulted into games.
Generalists (with no industry focus) are JQuery Mobile, Phone Gap, Sencha Touch, Titanium,
Xamarin and JQuery Mobile.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
JQuery Mobile
Titanium
Sencha Touch
Corona SDK
Phone Gap
Unity 3D
Marmalade
Xamarin
AIR
Construct2
70%-100% 30%-70% up to 30% 0%
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Table 2: CP Tool users by industry focus
Which app category and tools developers use is also a good indicator of the performance of the
tools.
The CP Tools which have been mainly used for apps published in the game sections are AIR,
Construct2, Corona SDK, Marmalade and Unity 3D.
These CP Tools are also often used to develop apps for the education and entertainment category.
Generalist tools are used to develop for a number of different app categories with no focus
towards any particular category. This observation applies especially for Phone Gap, JQuery Mobile,
Sencha Touch and Xamarin (Table 3).
No
indu
stri
al f
ocus
Gam
es
Ret
ail
New
s /
Info
/ M
edia
pub
lishe
rs
Spor
ts
Food
/ B
ever
age
Hea
lthc
are
/ Ph
arm
a
Uti
litie
s
Aut
omot
ive
Fast
mov
ing
cons
umer
goo
ds
Fina
ncia
l
IT Oth
er
AIR 15% 35% 3% 9% 4% 3% 3% 13% 1% 0% 3% 1% 13%
Construct2 11% 78% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 11%
Corona SDK 19% 37% 7% 7% 0% 7% 7% 11% 0% 0% 0% 0% 4%
JQuery Mobile 29% 5% 1% 13% 5% 3% 5% 15% 3% 0% 3% 10% 9%
Marmalade 10% 71% 2% 2% 2% 0% 2% 5% 0% 0% 2% 0% 2%
Phone Gap 16% 7% 8% 8% 5% 5% 13% 13% 3% 1% 6% 8% 7%
Sencha Touch 18% 0% 11% 4% 4% 4% 11% 18% 4% 4% 18% 4% 4%
Titanium 26% 0% 6% 24% 0% 3% 6% 9% 0% 6% 9% 9% 3%
Unity 3D 2% 69% 4% 2% 0% 2% 2% 4% 4% 2% 2% 4% 2%
Xamarin 20% 6% 14% 9% 3% 3% 9% 14% 0% 0% 3% 9% 11%
No focus Moderate focus Strong focus
(<10% of app projects) (10-30% of app projects) (>30% of app projects)
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Table 3: CP Tool users by app category focus
Boo
ks
Bus
ines
s
Cata
logs
Educ
atio
n
Ente
rpri
se A
dmin
istr
atio
n
Ente
rtai
nmen
t
Fina
nce
Food
/ D
rink
Gam
es
Hea
lth
/ Fi
tnes
s
Life
styl
e
Med
ical
Mus
ic
Nav
igat
ion
Net
wo
rkin
g
New
s
Phot
o /
Vid
eo
Prod
ucti
vity
Ref
eren
ce
Spor
ts
Trav
el
Uti
litie
s
Wea
ther
Oth
er
Can´
t te
ll
AIR 3% 5% 2% 13% 1% 9% 0% 2% 27% 4% 2% 2% 2% 2% 0% 1% 5% 4% 0% 3% 1% 6% 2% 3% 5%
Construct2 7% 0% 0% 7% 0% 14% 0% 0% 64% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 7% 0%
Corona SDK 5% 5% 0% 21% 0% 12% 0% 5% 28% 2% 5% 0% 2% 0% 2% 0% 2% 5% 0% 0% 0% 2% 0% 2% 2%
JQuery Mobi le 3% 10% 2% 7% 5% 5% 1% 2% 4% 5% 8% 0% 1% 5% 2% 5% 3% 7% 6% 4% 3% 9% 0% 2% 5%
Marmalade 3% 2% 2% 2% 0% 14% 2% 2% 47% 3% 2% 0% 3% 2% 0% 2% 3% 0% 0% 2% 0% 5% 0% 3% 2%
Phone Gap 2% 9% 3% 7% 4% 4% 4% 2% 4% 7% 7% 5% 1% 3% 2% 5% 5% 4% 3% 2% 2% 5% 2% 2% 7%
Sencha Touch 5% 11% 5% 7% 5% 5% 5% 0% 0% 11% 9% 0% 0% 5% 9% 0% 2% 2% 7% 0% 5% 5% 0% 0% 5%
Titanium 0% 9% 3% 8% 4% 5% 4% 3% 0% 5% 8% 3% 4% 4% 4% 8% 4% 4% 3% 1% 5% 10% 1% 0% 5%
Unity 3D 3% 6% 1% 10% 3% 16% 1% 0% 43% 1% 4% 1% 0% 0% 3% 0% 1% 1% 0% 0% 3% 1% 0% 0% 0%
Xamarin 4% 8% 4% 6% 4% 6% 2% 4% 4% 4% 4% 2% 0% 0% 4% 4% 0% 10% 4% 0% 8% 12% 4% 2% 4%
No Focus Moderate Focus Strong Focus
< 7% of app projects 7%-20% of app projects >20% of app projects
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7. CROSS PLATFORM TOOL COMPLEXITY COMPARISON
An indicator for the complexity of CP Tools is the time to get familiar with the solution.
Besides Construct2 and Sencha Touch, the tools that are quickest to learn are JQuery Mobile and
Phone Gap. 39% of JQuery users master the tool within a couple of days and 64% within a couple
of weeks. 41% of Phone Gap users need just days to familiarize themselves with the tool and for
41% it took weeks.
Tools that require the longest familiarization time are AIR, Unity 3D, Marmalade and Corona SDK.
Between 3% and 15% of users of these tools need even years to learn.
Corona SDK, Marmalade, Unity 3D and AIR have a focus on game development. CP Tools that cater
the games industry are in general of rather high complexity and thus need a longer time to get
used to.
Across the generalists (JQuery Mobile, Phone Gap, Xamarin and Titanium) the necessary time to
learn tends to be shorter when compared to the CP Tools with a focus on game development.
However, Titanium is an exception: 24% of users need months to master the solution from
Appcelerator.
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Figure 5: Complexity benchmarking: time-to-familiarize
The overall complexity rating of a CP Tool is a broader indicator compared to the time it takes to
familiarize. It also includes the handling of the tool once the user has become acquainted with the
software.
The majority of users rate the complexity of the CP Tools comparable to other software tools
(average).
Marmalade is the tool with the highest complexity rating. 63% of its users rate the tool complexity
“high” or “very high”. Bearing in mind that 67% of Marmalades users claim to be professional
developers, this high complexity rating is clearly something to watch out for when selecting the
right CP Tool.
In contrast, Construct 2 (90%)1 and Corona SDK (38%) have been rated as the CP Tools with the
lowest overall complexity. This may be due to Corona’s programming language, which has a
reputation of being a rather comfortable programming language.
1 Small sample size might have influenced results for positive complexity rating of Construct 2
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
AIR
Unity 3D
Titanium
Marmalade
Corona SDK
Xamarin
Phone Gap
JQuery Mobile
Sencha Touch
Construct2
Days Weeks Months Years Can´t tell
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Figure 6: Complexity benchmarking: user rating complexity
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Marmalade
Titanium
Sencha Touch
Unity 3D
AIR
Phone Gap
Xamarin
JQuery Mobile
Corona SDK
Construct2
Very low / none Low Average High Very high
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8. SUPPORT SERVICE QUALITY COMPARISON
The most used service channel of the CP Tool users is online community support, established by
the vendors and external providers.
On site trainings and project support as well as online support are also channels that CP Tools
vendors offer and that are being used frequently.
Support channel usage does not show significant differences amongst CP Tools. Users seem to
have similar preferences.
Table 4: Support services usage
In contrast, the quality of the support services is rated very differently. Xamarin, AIR and Sencha
Touch offer the best support service quality.
Xamarin has the highest share of satisfied users. 93% of Xamarin users rate the support services as
“good” or “very good”. Their online community, on-site trainings or tutorials, as their most
popular support channels, seem to meet user demand very well.
Titanium, Marmalade and Phone Gap have the lowest share of users who are happy with the
support services.
Marmalade has the highest share of unsatisfied users. Marmalade is the only tool that has nearly
as many unsatisfied (34%) as satisfied (41%) customers. 9% of Marmalade users even rate the
support services as “very bad”. Marmalade support service channels do not seem to cope with the
On-
site
pro
ject
sup
port
On-
site
tra
inin
g /
tuto
rial
s
Phon
e su
ppor
t
Rea
l-ti
me
onlin
e su
ppor
t
Tim
e-de
laye
d on
line
supp
ort
Onl
ine
com
mun
ity
AIR 23% 23% 5% 2% 7% 73%
Construct2 25% 25% 0% 13% 0% 75%
Corona SDK 17% 28% 6% 6% 22% 78%
JQuery Mobile 17% 33% 6% 6% 6% 75%
Marmalade 24% 12% 9% 9% 45% 82%
Phone Gap 31% 20% 14% 5% 10% 66%
Sencha Touch 30% 40% 0% 20% 20% 90%
Titanium 12% 18% 6% 6% 12% 88%
Unity 3D 23% 35% 4% 4% 19% 85%
Xamarin 8% 31% 8% 15% 38% 92%
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help requests made by users. Companies that have limited access to app development expertise
should pay the highest attention to this point as Marmalade is also rated as the most complex CP
Tool.
Figure 7: Support services quality rating
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Titanium
Marmalade
Phone Gap
Construct2
JQuery Mobile
Corona SDK
Unity 3D
Sencha Touch
AIR
Xamarin
Very good Good Sufficient Insufficient Very bad
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9. PLATFORM SUPPORT COMPARISON
CP Tools offer a broader or narrower support for mobile, desktop and additional app platforms
(TV, game consoles, in-car devices). The intensity with which the developers use a specific CP Tool
to develop for one of the supported platforms can be used as a further benchmark for the quality
of the tools.
Overall, CP Tools are most frequently used for developing mobile apps for Android, iOS and
Blackberry 10. App development tools for HTML targeting mobile and HTML targeting desktop lag
behind.
CP Tools that are the most widely used to develop for different platforms are Marmalade, Air and
Unity 3D.
Table 5: Usage intensity of CP Tool supported platforms
iOs
And
roid
Win
dow
s Ph
one
Win
dow
s 8
Bla
ckbe
rry
7 an
d lo
we
r
Bla
ckbe
rry
10
Sym
bian
Bad
a
Ubu
ntu
Fire
fox
OS
Flas
h /
Flas
h Li
te
Tize
n
LG p
ropr
ieta
ry
Htm
l (ta
rget
ing
mob
ile)
Htm
l (ta
rget
ing
desk
top)
Win
dow
s (d
eskt
op)
OS
X (
desk
top)
Chro
me
Java
ME
Qt
Face
book
Mic
roso
ft X
Box
Sony
Pla
ysta
tion
Smar
t TV
s
AIR 65% 80% 7% 19% 41% 30% 20% 31% 15% 7% 4% 11%
Construct2 11% 67% 11% 22% 89% 11% 33% 22% 22%
Corona SDK 85% 90%
JQuery Mobile 67% 81% 17% 10% 25% 35% 10% 4% 46% 33% 8% 6% 4% 8% 4%
Marmalade 53% 66% 29% 79% 11% 21% 5% 11%
Phone Gap 80% 87% 22% 11% 24% 24% 11% 3% 22% 12%
Sencha Touch 75% 83% 0% 8% 25% 0% 58% 25% 17% 8%
Titanium 92% 92% 8% 8% 8%
Unity 3D 84% 94% 13% 13% 13% 3% 3% 0% 6% 13% 31% 22% 3% 6% 6% 9% 3% 3%
Xamarin 74% 95% 11% 16% 5% 16% 5%
<25% 25-50% 50-75% >75% not supported
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Marmalade (95%) and Unity 3D (94%) have the highest satisfaction for their platform support. The
vast majority of their users are satisfied with the possibilities to cross-develop for multiple OS.
They predominantly target Android, iOS and Blackberry. Sencha Touch receives also very good
user satisfaction ratings for their platform coverage, but results should be handled with care
because of low ratings.
JQuery Mobile, as a toolkit for the creation of web apps, is ranked number three for platform
support satisfaction.
Titanium has the lowest satisfaction for platform support. 36% of Titanium users are not satisfied
with their support. De facto, Titanium is a CP Tool that is being used to only develop apps for
Android and iOS, although Appcelerator offers support for a multitude of operating systems: iOS,
Android, Blackberry, Tizen, as well hybrid and HTML5.
Figure 8: Platform support benchmarking: user satisfaction with platform support
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Titanium
Construct2
AIR
Corona SDK
Phone Gap
Xamarin
JQuery Mobile
Unity 3D
Marmalade
Sencha Touch
Satisfied Unsatisfied
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10. APP PROJECT DURATION AND TIME SAVINGS COMPARISON
CP Tools are designed to reduce app development time for multi- platform publishing.
The necessary development time is closely related to the size or complexity of an app project. A
comparison of the CP Tools based on the app development time is therefore difficult, but
development time can be used very well as an indicator for the complexity of the app which the
developer tries to build with the help of a CP Tool.
If the average development time for an app is only counted in days or weeks (as in the case of
Construct 2, JQuery or Titanium), it is a safe guess to say that these tools are mainly being used to
develop simple apps.
Unity 3D and Marmalade are the tools that show the longest average project durations.
Figure 9: Average app development time
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Unity 3D
Marmalade
Xamarin
Corona SDK
AIR
Phone Gap
Titanium
Sencha Touch
JQuery Mobile
Construct2
Days Weeks Months
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Against the background of the normal project length is the time saving, made possible by the use
of the tool, an important indicator of the quality of the tools.
The highest time savings for app development can be realized with Unity 3D, Corona SDK and
Xamarin. For all three tools, more than 50% of its users were able to develop more than 50%
faster.
JQuery Mobile, Marmalade and Titanium offer the smallest time saving for their users. The
realized time savings of these tools are below average. In case of Marmalade, the high complexity
of the tool (see above) might offset efficiency gains. For JQuery, the short project durations might
not give enough room for time savings.
Figure 10: Realized time-savings with CP Tools
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Titanium
Marmalade
JQuery Mobile
Sencha Touch
Phone Gap
AIR
Xamarin
Corona SDK
Unity 3D
Construct2
50%+ faster 30%-50% faster up to 30% faster 0% faster slower
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11. USER SATISFACTION WITH TECNOLOGY FEATURES
Availability of cloud API services (e.g. operator billing, in-app advertisement, app analytics or shop
systems), accessibility of device hardware features (e.g. microphone, camera, speaker) and pre-
installed applications (e.g. calendar, address book) help to manage the app lifecycle, ease the
development process and/or allow the creation of sophisticated apps in terms of functionalities as
well as look-and-feel.
CP Tools differ significantly in how intensively developers are using these features, how critical
they rate this service and how satisfied they are with the technology features.
11.1. CLOUD API SERVICES
Across all users of CP Tools, the availability of cloud API services is rated as of rather low
importance. Across all CP Tools the availability of cloud API services has been rated “critical” by
only 33% of users. Not surprisingly, the usage intensity of API services is moderate. Overall, less
than one third of the users say that they use the services “intensely” or “often”.
In the case of Corona and Sencha Touch, 50% of users regard the availability of cloud API services
as “critical”. 34% of Corona clients use these services frequently, which is the highest share of
intense users across all tools. At the same time, service satisfaction among Corona users is below
average.
AIR and Xamarin clients state the highest satisfaction with cloud API services. In the case of
Xamarin the usage intensity was higher than in the case of AIR. 30% of Xamarin users and 18% of
AIR users make extensive use of the services.
Titanium has a rather low share of users that are “satisfied” (30%) or “very satisfied” (10%) with
the Appcelerator cloud API services. In contrast 20% of users have been “unsatisfied”, which is the
largest share of non-satisfied users in the benchmarking regarding cloud API services.
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Figure 11: Cloud API services: service satisfaction, usage and importance
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Construct2
Sencha Touch
Corona SDK
Titanium
Phone Gap
JQuery Mobile
Unity 3D
Marmalade
Xamarin
AIR
Very satisfied Satisfied Neutral
Unsatisfied Very unsatisfied
Cloud apis
0% 20% 40%
Intense or frequent usage
0% 50% 100%
Importance rating "critical"
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11.2. ACCESSIBIL ITY OF DEVICE HARDWARE FEATURES
Across all CP Tools in the benchmarking, 60% of users regard the accessibility of device hardware
features as “critical”. In particular Titanium users (85%), Unity 3D users (73%) and Phone Gap
users (72%) rate this feature as very important.
Besides Unity users, clients of other CP Tools with an emphasis on games (Corona SDK and
Marmalade) find this option very important.
Xamarin users are the most satisfied with the service of their tool: 69% are satisfied or very
satisfied with the accessibility of device hardware features.
Titanium and JQuery Mobile users are the least satisfied with the accessibility of device hardware
features.
Figure 12: Accessibility of device hardware features: service satisfaction, usage and importance
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Titanium
JQuery Mobile
Phone Gap
Corona SDK
Xamarin
Unity 3D
Sencha Touch
AIR
Construct2
Marmalade
Very satisfied Satisfied Neutral
Unsatisfied Very unsatisfied
HW
0% 50% 100%
Intense or frequent usage
0% 50% 100%
Importance rating "critical"
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11.3. ACCESSIBILITY OF PRE-INSTALLED APPLICATIONS
Across all CP Tools the accessibility of pre-installed applications is rated by 40% of users as
important. Titanium clients rate the importance of accessibility of pre-installed applications the
highest (77%) and Marmalade clients the lowest (11%).
Phone Gap and Xamarin clients use this feature the most. 37% of Phone Gap users and 35% of
Xamarin users state that they use this feature “frequently” or “intensely”, followed by Titanium
users (28%). The lowest usage is amongst Corona SDK clients.
Xamarin users are the most satisfied with the service. Titanium users are the least satisfied.
Figure 13: Accessibility of pre-installed applications: service satisfaction, usage and importance
The results for all 3 benchmarked technology features indicate that Titanium users are the most
demanding developers and see technology features most critically.
On the other hand, Xamarin users tend to rate their tool support the most positively.
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Sencha Touch
Corona SDK
Unity 3D
Titanium
Phone Gap
JQuery Mobile
Marmalade
Construct2
AIR
Xamarin
Very satisfied Satisfied Neutral
Unsatisfied Very unsatisfied
Pre-inst apps
0% 20% 40%
Intense or frequent usage
0% 50% 100%
Importance rating "critical"
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12. APP QUALITY BENCHMARKING
An important indicator for the performance of the different CP Tools is the quality of the apps that
has been developed with the help of a CP Tool. The quality of an app depends on the graphical
standard, the usability, the performance, the revenue potential and how secure the app is against
threats from viruses, data theft etc.
To evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of cross-platform apps, CP Tools have been compared
with native apps for the 5 app quality criteria.
Across all these factors, results for the different CP Tools are positive, but the differences between
the tools are significant.
12.1. DESIGN FEATURE COMPARISON
Design features of CP Tools are e.g. pre-installed design templates, functionality to edit and import
existing graphical resources and the support of animations.
In terms of “design features” AIR and Xamarin apps are rated best by far: 92% of AIR users and
89% of Xamarin users describe their cross-platform apps as good as or even better than native
apps in terms of design.
In contrast, the majority of Titanium users (57%) describe the design of their apps worse than
native apps. 22% even say that the scope of design for Titanium apps is “much lower” compared
to apps created with native SDK.
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Figure 14: App quality rating by CP Tool users: design features
12.2. USABILITY COMPARISON AGAINST NATIVE APPS
The usability of an app determines how effectively and efficiently users can accomplish the tasks
for which the app was designed.
Apps built with CP Tools have to make compromises, as the features and gestures that drive the
usability must work on multiple platforms and devices.
Nevertheless, CP Tools are being rated positively by users for the usability quality of their apps.
Xamarin is leading in usability as well: 89% of Xamarin users rate the usability of their apps up to
par with apps created with a native SDK. 81% of Unity 3D users rate their apps as having native-
like quality.
The lower end again is taken by Titanium and Phone Gap: 59% of Titanium users and 45% of
Phone Gap users rank their apps behind native apps, with 10% (Phone Gap) and 9% (Titanium) of
users rating the usability of their apps “much lower” than native.
-60% -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Titanium
Phone Gap
JQuery Mobile
Sencha Touch
Marmalade
Corona SDK
Unity 3D
Construct2
Xamarin
AIR
Same or higher Lower Much lower
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Figure 15: App quality rating by CP Tool users: usability
12.3. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON AGAINST NATIVE APPS
The app performance describes the responsiveness, reliability and availability of an app.
Across all CP Tools in the benchmark, performance is the major weakness of cross-platform apps.
However, the results differ widely between CP Tools.
Again, Marmalade, Xamarin and Unity 3D apps are rated best. Especially Marmalade users (88%)
do not view their apps worse than apps created with an OS-specific native SDK.
Also, Titanium and Phone Gap apps are ranked on the lower end. 35% of Titanium users and 30%
of Phone Gap users describe the performance of their apps even “much lower” than native apps.
-60% -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Titanium
Phone Gap
JQuery Mobile
Sencha Touch
Marmalade
Corona SDK
AIR
Unity 3D
Construct2
Xamarin
Same or higher Lower Much lower
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Figure 16: App quality rating by CP Tool users: app performance
-80% -60% -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Titanium
Phone Gap
Construct2
JQuery Mobile
Sencha Touch
AIR
Corona SDK
Unity 3D
Xamarin
Marmalade
Same or higher Lower Much lower
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12.4. APP SECURITY COMPARISON
Mobile app security has become increasingly important in mobile computing. It is of particular
concern as it relates to the security of personal information now stored on smartphones with the
help of apps. Indeed, apps collect and compile an increasing amount of sensitive information, to
which access must be controlled to protect the privacy of the user and the intellectual property of
the company.
CP Tools can support app security by e.g. complying with international standards, providing
security guidelines or tutorials, or by making it easy to implement encryption technologies.
App security is rated highest for Xamarin and Construct2.
Phone Gap and Titanium apps are again on the lower end of the list. Especially for Titanium the
user rating is low: 35% complain about “much lower” app security compared to native apps.
Figure 17: App quality rating by CP Tool users: app security
-60% -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Titanium
Phone Gap
JQuery Mobile
Corona SDK
AIR
Unity 3D
Sencha Touch
Marmalade
Construct2
Xamarin
Same or higher Lower Much lower
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12.5. APP REVENUE COMPARISON
App revenue which can be generated with apps that are being built with the help of CP Tools is
mainly impacted by increasing the reach/downloads of the app with easy multi-platform
publishing. In addition, CP Tools can support revenue generation by providing easy access to in-
app purchase, in-app advertisement as well as analytical tools that work on multiple platforms.
In terms of generated app revenues, all tools are being rated positively compared to native app
development.
AIR users rate their apps highest, followed by Unity 3D and Marmalade users.
On the lower end again are Titanium and Phone Gap apps.
Figure 18: App quality rating by CP Tool users: generated app revenues
-40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Construct2
Titanium
Phone Gap
Corona SDK
JQuery Mobile
Sencha Touch
Xamarin
Marmalade
Unity 3D
AIR
Same or higher Lower Much lower
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13. COST-PERFORMANCE RATIO COMPARISON
Cost-performance ratio is an overall indicator of how efficient app developers rate the CP Tool-
supported development and publishing process of an app.
Overall, the cost-performance ratio is very high: on average 69% or more of the users rate the
cost-performance ratio “okay” or “good value”.
Construct2 and Marmalade cost efficiency rating is the highest with more than 50% of their users
saying that the CP Tool has a good value.
Titanium users make the highest share of unsatisfied users: 19% rate the cost-performance ratio
below average.
Figure 19: CP Tool user rating: cost-performance ratio
All CP Tools included in the benchmarking show strengths and weaknesses. In order to select the
best CP Tool for an app project or even for building an app portfolio, the pros and cons must be
understood. Listening to what users of these CP Tools are saying is a valuable input for the
decision.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Sencha Touch
Titanium
Phone Gap
Xamarin
Corona SDK
JQuery Mobile
Unity 3D
AIR
Marmalade
Construct2
Good value Okay Average Costly Poor value
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In general, the benchmarking of 10 of the most frequently used CP Tools shows that users are
satisfied with their tools.
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14. APPENDIX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The authors of this report have been following the app market and CP Tools for many years. The first report on multi-
platform app publishing tools was published in 2010. Since then, two other reports which cover the market for CP
Tools have been published.
OUR ANALYST TEAM
Ralf-Gordon Jahns
Ralf is the research director of research2guidance.
He has worked for more than 19 years in the
telecom and media industry. Prior to
research2guidance he worked as a partner for
Capgemini Telecom Media & Networks. Ralf is a
frequent keynote speaker on mobile industry
events, publisher of a multitude of mobile market
reports and executive consultant of more than
30 clients in the telecom and media industry.
Joachim Thiele-Schlesier
Joachim is a research analyst at research2guidance.
He is monitoring the CP Tool market since 2011 and
has been responsible for publishing 3 reports on this
topic. Joachim also engaged with projects on
converging telecommunication networks and
regulatory issues. He holds a degree in economics and
specializes on infrastructure and network economics.
Prior to research2guidance he worked for
Markedskraft ASA as analyst and for the Fraunhofer
Institute for Open Communication Systems and
Center for Network Industries.
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1: Geographical overview of cross-platform tool users ........................................................................................... 8
Figure 2: Background of cross-platform tool users ............................................................................................................. 9
Figure 3: CP Tool users by company size .......................................................................................................................... 14
Figure 4: CP Tool usage intensity by share of apps with CP Tool ...................................................................................... 16
Figure 5: Complexity benchmarking: time-to-familiarize ................................................................................................. 20
Figure 6: Complexity benchmarking: user rating complexity ........................................................................................... 21
Figure 7: Support services quality rating .......................................................................................................................... 23
Figure 8: Platform support benchmarking: user satisfaction with platform support ....................................................... 25
Figure 9: Average app development time ......................................................................................................................... 27
Figure 10: Realized time-savings with CP Tools ................................................................................................................ 28
Figure 11: Cloud API services: service satisfaction, usage and importance ...................................................................... 30
Figure 12: Accessibility of device hardware features: service satisfaction, usage and importance ................................. 31
Figure 13: Accessibility of pre-installed applications: service satisfaction, usage and importance .................................. 32
Figure 14: App quality rating by CP Tool users: design features ....................................................................................... 34
Figure 15: App quality rating by CP Tool users: usability .................................................................................................. 35
Figure 16: App quality rating by CP Tool users: app performance.................................................................................... 36
Figure 17: App quality rating by CP Tool users: app security ............................................................................................ 37
Figure 18: App quality rating by CP Tool users: generated app revenues ........................................................................ 39
Figure 19: CP Tool user rating: cost-performance ratio .................................................................................................... 40
Table 1: Benchmarked CP Tools and sample sizes ............................................................................................................ 10
Table 2: CP Tool users by industry focus ........................................................................................................................... 17
Table 3: CP Tool users by app category focus ................................................................................................................... 18
Table 4: Support services usage ........................................................................................................................................ 22
Table 5: Usage intensity of CP Tool supported platforms ................................................................................................. 24
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CONTACT RESEARCH2GUIDANCE
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