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7 Things You Should Know Before Using Magento Commerce

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Magento

Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. It is one of the most popular open e-commerce systems in the network. This software is created using the Zend Framework.

More than 100,000 online stores have been created on this platform. The platform code has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times, and $155 billion worth of goods have been sold through Magento-based systems in 2019. Two years ago, Magento accounted for about 30% of the total market share.

In a hurry? Here are the 7 things you should consider before using Magento as an enterprise eCommerce platform:

1. Ongoing costs

Despite Magento Opensource doesn’t require paying a minimum yearly fee of $22,000 a year, it requires you to undergo updates, development, and integration from time to time. And those are just the upfront costs — you’ll also have to factor in the hidden costs of running an on-premise website.

Magento regularly rolls out patches and security updates which need to be manually installed. And the manual installation process is not as straightforward as you like it to be. You’re better off getting support to help you managing and installing the updates, but this would come at a cost. You would need to hire Magento specialists or refer to official Magento support, which isn’t cheap.

2. Needy technology

Do you want to manage technology, or use it? If you’re using Magento Commerce edition, you’ll find that it’s based on an old approach of “download and customize”. Not only does that take time, but it also takes technical knowledge — which again, may cost you a pretty penny if you want your eCommerce experience to be bespoke and enterprise-grade.

This approach from Magento also saps your attention and energy away from the activities that will help you scale your business. Instead, you will be forced to worry about managing the technology and running updates as and when required.

3. The support sinkhole

Magento has 1,300 open and ongoing support tickets. So if you run into issues, you may be waiting in line for quite some time before you find a solution.

If you want to bypass official Magento support (which you’d be paying for handsomely) your ongoing support costs will rise even further, as independent Magento support specialists charge hefty fees.

4. Magento is just an eCommerce solution — but that’s not enough for an enterprise

Here’s a vital point that’s often overlooked (before it’s too late, that is).

Magento is a stellar eCommerce platform, but that’s pretty much all it is. But in today’s eCommerce climate, to even stand a slim chance against the eCommerce giants like Amazon, you need so much more than just an eCommerce platform.

The modern consumer isn’t satisfied with just a product page and some on-site reviews. They want content in abundance before they even consider a purchase. They want walkthroughs, unboxing videos, documentation, third-party reviews, and more. The bottom line, they want an omnichannel experience. In fact, according to data compiled by MineWhat.com, 81 percent of consumers conduct online research before buying anything.

Oh, and you’ll also need to monitor your website’s analytics, collect customer data within a CRM, build landing pages for your ad campaigns and execute email marketing campaigns on a regular basis. Magento was to do none of the above.

5. Updates, migrations, and headaches

Running Magento means you must undergo an endless cycle of updates. And as mentioned before, running these maintenance procedures is not a straightforward task. Plus, you would eventually have to migrate to the newest version of Magento, whenever they decide to roll that out. For example, currently, Magento 1 users are experiencing the pain of having to migrate to Magento 2.

Magento 1 users have to either migrate to Magento 2 or replatform completely, as it was announced that Magento Commerce would not be providing support for Magento 1 after June 2022 (previously, it was November 2018, but this was extended).

6. It’s open-source

As an open-source platform, Magento gives users the ability to customize the code in any way they like. That may sound great at first, but when you consider issue #5 mentioned previously, having a highly-customized, bespoke back-end will make your life even more difficult when it comes to inevitably migration or re-platforming.

Plus, if you stray too far away from commonly used theme and extensions that aren’t peer-reviewed or tested for usability, you’ll risk breaking your entire eCommerce environment.

If you opt for a closed source enterprise eCommerce solution, you can still build a custom site with the help of the software vendor or an agency, but it will be done within the limits of the software, avoiding breakage and future headaches. Plus, closed source platforms have a much healthier track record when it comes to security.

7. Magento isn’t for the IoT era

As more IoT devices emerge, online merchants have to ask themselves a critical question; how are we going to sell products and publish content on all these new channels?

The answer is through a headless commerce platform; which can headlessly deliver products, content and other assets to Amazon Echos, smartwatches, digital signage and everywhere in between.

Sure, Magento Commerce has APIs to help deliver content to a broad range of channels; but as previously mentioned, Magento is just an eCommerce solution — it was never meant to manage a brand’s omnichannel strategy across all touchpoints. So, at best, you’ll get an inconsistent experience because you’ll have to draft in additional technology to plug the gaps left by Magento. Hardly ideal when brands like Amazon are providing seamlessly enjoyable shopping experiences.

Consider your options before using Magento as an enterprise eCommerce platform We won’t deny that Magento is a stellar eCommerce solution; but will argue that it’s not the best commerce solution when you factor in things like.

10 Reasons Make WordPress the Best CMS for SEO

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10 Reasons Make WordPress the Best CMS for SEO

Since WordPress releasing in 2003, it has never stopped growing; In fact, it now powers 34% of the web. The latest version of WordPress 5.3 which released in November 2019; has already had 36 million downloads!

So what are the reasons behind WordPress’s popularity among other CMS types

There are many reasons for this popularity; here are 10 reasons why.

1. Focusing on User Experience

WordPress’s themes and plugins work together to make websites professional, user-friendly, and attractive; as a result, visitors enjoy the experience they get on a WordPress site.

They stay longer, decreasing your overall site bounce rate.

If you’re looking to improve your site’s SEO ranking, this is excellent news for you; Google wants to reward websites that provide a great user experience.

2. Ability to Create Attractive Permalinks

On WordPress, it’s very easy to edit your website’s permalink; instead of having a URL full of ugly-looking characters; WordPress gives you simple and beautiful ones.

The beauty of being able to edit your article’s permalink is you can plug your keyword into the URL; this means your permalink doesn’t only look pretty and informative, it can help with your search ranking as well.

3. Easy to Manage Metadata

SEO titles and metadata improve how search engines interpret the relevance of your site.

When you add relevant keywords to your metadata, your site becomes more likely to rank for those keywords.

When you use WordPress, you can get a plugin such as Yoast SEO; it allows you to add metadata to all your posts in minutes.

4. Optimizing Images for SEO Is Simple

Images are essential to your blog posts; One or two of them, used in a timely way, breaks up your blog into interesting, readable sections; But images don’t only lead readers into the heart of your text.

They’re also powerful tools for SEO, especially when you use WordPress.

Here are three ways WordPress can optimize your images for better SEO ranking:

  • WordPress allows you to “create alternative text” for each image you use.
  • You can use a plugin that automatically creates alt text for your images.
  • You can resize your images so they don’t slow your page’s load speed down.

5. WordPress’s Sites Don’t Frustrate Users With Slow Load Time

Page speed is a Google ranking factor in mobile search; So if your website is slow, it’ll not only frustrate users but push you lower on Google’s SERPs.

The good news is WordPress has amazing plugins that help with site speed; for example, there’s ShortPixel Image Optimizer plugin compresses your PDF documents and past images to speed up your site’s load time.

Another amazing plugin for site speed optimization is WPOptimize; it caches your site, clears your database, and compresses your images for faster loading.

6. Optimized for Mobile Users

Mobile usage has grown rapidly in the past few years; mobile traffic went up 222% in five years!

If you’re a marketer trying to gain traction online, this means your website must be optimized for mobile usage.

The great news is if you’re already using WordPress to power your site; you don’t need to do anything extra to make your website accessible on mobile devices; It is because WordPress themes are already optimized for mobile users.

7. WordPress Helps You Integrate Your Campaign with Social Media

Social media is huge today, and it’s one of the best platforms for marketing your brand. Success in your social media campaign will indirectly improve your SEO ranking.

Unlock opportunities to improve your Google Ads; Free report analyses your campaigns, suggests improvements and gives you an advantage in 60 seconds.

That means you should use social media to go hand-in-hand with your online marketing campaign, and WordPress is there to help you do that.

On WordPress, you can create customized social media buttons for your blog so it’s easier for readers to share your content.

You can add a social media feed to your site and you can even automate your social media campaigns.

8. WordPress Has Awesome Plugins Made Specifically for SEO

When you use WordPress, optimizing for higher ranking becomes simple. All you need is to install the right plugins.

Here are the best three SEO plugins for WordPress.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO has had millions of downloads worldwide because it makes website optimization simple for even the least tech-savvy person on the planet.

It also offers Premium users full support whenever needed.

Google XML Site Maps

With this plugin, creating complex XML site maps becomes simple. These maps make your site’s structure easy for search engine crawlers to understand.

Also, each time you publish a post, this plugin “notifies” search engines of your new content.

Google Analytics by Monster Insights

WordPress’s Google Analytics plugin is described as both “easy” and “powerful.”

Here are three reasons this plugin stands out:

  • You don’t need to leave your WordPress dashboard to see your Google Analytics reports.
  • You can study which pages stand out on your site with detailed stats.
  • Ability see how many clicks your banner ads, affiliate links, and outbound links get.

9. Easy to Integrate with Other Software Tools

You already know how it is easy to integrate WordPress with Google Analytics and Yoast, but they’re not the only software tools you can use seamlessly with WordPress.

Here are some others:

  • ConvertKit (for email campaigns, landing pages, and forms).
  • Sucuri (Security testing).
  • G Suite (for your documents, spreadsheets, and emails).

With these software tools running smoothly with your site, you can boost engagement which will further improve your SEO rank.

10. Dominate the SERPs with WordPress

It’s not hard to find the best CMS for SEO. With WordPress, you have a platform that’s packed with SEO-friendly themes, plugins, and tools.

CMS

Here’s a list of the top 15 CMS types that are dominating Google’s SERPs:

  1.  WordPress ( 45 % )
  2.  MediaWiki ( 9 % )
  3.  Drupal ( 8% )
  4. Adobe Experience Manager (4%)
  5.  Ruby on Rails ( 4% )
  6. ATG Ve ( Commerce ( 1%)
  7. SiteCore (<1 % )
  8. HubSpot (<1 % )
  9. Magento (<1%)
  10. Squarespace(<1%)
  11. . Shopify (<1%)
  12. . Lifera (<1%)
  13. Django Framwork (<1%)
  14. Joomla (<1%)
  15. Laravel (<1%)

When you use all SEO features, you’re one huge step closer to the top of Google’s SERPs.

The simple guide for SEO audit

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SEO

Doing a search engine optimization audit (SEO Audit) of your website is important for many reasons.

Before getting into the details on how to perform a website SEO audit, it is necessary to understand the meaning of it and what to expect as the end result.

What is an SEO audit?

An SEO audit is a process for evaluating the search engine friendliness of a website in a number of areas. The main goal of SEO audit is to help you to optimize your website so that it can achieve higher rankings in the search engine results.

The SEO auditor will manually review the website and come up with recommendations of what needs to be fixed (because it is wrong) and what needs to change so that the performance of the website in search engines is improved.

SEO Audit Checklist

Now after you are convinced that an SEO audit is very important for every website, thus let’s see how you can perform your own website SEO audit.

Our SEO audit checklist is complete and includes everything you need to know to perform a manual SEO audit.

Step 1: Check for Google Penalties

The first step is to check whether your website is penalized by Google or not.

If your website is under a manual or algorithmic penalty, your rankings will be negatively affected.

There are two easy ways to check for Google penalties:

The first way is to log in to Google search console and then select ‘Manual Actions’ from the left menu. If there is a manual action imposed on your website, you can see the reason(s) here.

The second way is to log in to your Google Analytics and then compare your Google organic traffic for the dates Google released an algorithmic change.

Step 2: Check the Domain Appearance by Search

The second step is to search for your brand name in Google and review the results.

Things to check:

  • Does your homepage come up first in the search results?
  • Does Google show site links along with your listing?
  • Are the descriptions below your homepage and other pages accurate as you insert?
  • Does Google show the knowledge graph entry on the right panel for your brand?
  • Are the name and the other information on your GMB page correct?
  • Are the rest of the pages listed on the first page of Google results relevant to your brand?

What to do if you don’t get the expected results?

If you don’t get a nice listing as explained above then this means that there are a number of issues with your website.

The best approach is to fix these issues before proceeding any further by:

  • Reviewing and optimizing your site structure
  • Review your homepage SEO
  • Claim your Google My Business page and make sure that all information is accurate and correct

Step 3: Perform a Technical SEO Audit

Technical SEO comes first because you need to make sure that search engines can access and index your pages without any issues.

Technical SEO Checklist

Is your website registered with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools?

If not, then this is a top priority.

Google search console is a free tool provided by Google which gives information to webmasters about their websites.

Everything that Google knows about your website is available in the various tool options and reports.

Here are some of these things:

  • Security or other indexing issues related to your website
  • Mobile usability issues
  • Did you specify a preferred domain in Google Search Console
  • Are your robots.txt file and sitemap.xml file optimized
  • Is your URLs SEO Friendly?
  • Do you activate the breadcrumb menu?
  • Is your 404 Page Optimized?
  • Do you have a canonical URL set for all your pages?
  • Is your website HTTPS?
  • Is your website fast enough?
  • Minify your CSS and HTML to make their size smaller
  • Use a caching plugin or page speed service to serve cached pages to users.
  • Remove unnecessary JavaScript from pages
  • Update to the latest version of PHP.
  • And many more…

Step 4: Perform an On-Page SEO Audit

Once you are done with the technical SEO audit and fixed all issues, the next step is to deal with the content of your website.

It is the most important part of the SEO Audit. In fact, many audits cover this part only but our approach, as explained above, is for checking other areas as well.

The main goal of on-site SEO is to help search engines understand the meaning of your content.

On-Page SEO Audit Checklist

As a website owner, your job is to provide search engine crawlers with the right signals through the use of keywords and other on-page SEO elements.

Check and Optimize your titles and descriptions

Are the titles and descriptions unique for each page and within the specified size?

Can the user tell from the title what the page is all about and is the description an advertisement of what the page has to offer?

Check your headings and text formatting

Make sure that you don’t just have plain text in your pages. In other words, Any text should be properly formatted using H1 (for the main title only) and H2 (for the main headings), bold and italics for the important parts, lists where necessary, etc.

Check your Content SEO

The content of your website has to be unique. You can use Copyscape to check all your pages for uniqueness and if you find duplicate content you have to remove or de-index these pages.

Use Google Analytics to find the most popular pages (both landing pages and with the most visits) and make sure that these have high-quality content (free of spelling and grammar errors, properly formatted, properly promoted in social media, etc.).

You also need to check the content length and content freshness.

If you have pages with little or no content or pages with similar content, then you need to merge them together using 301 redirects.

If your content is old or out-of-date, create a publishing plan and make sure that your website is updated on a frequent basis.

You don’t have to post daily but you need to maintain a steady posting scheduling.

Check your Internal link structure

Linking your pages together is useful to both search engines and users. Check and make sure that you are indeed linking related pages together

Check Image SEO

Images are useful for making a web page easier to read and more attractive to social media (especially Pinterest and Instagram) but they can work against your SEO efforts if they increase the loading time of a page.

In general, you need to check 3 things when it comes to images:

  1. Image filenames are descriptive of what the image is about. You can use the name of the page or post.
  2. All images need to have an SEO Optimized ALT text defined
  3. Minimize the images size by compressing them.

Check for broken links

Broken links are bad for the user experience and thus not good for an SEO perspective.

Check for proper use of banner ads

A few years ago, Google started penalizing websites that have too many ads above the fold; therefore if your ad implementation is not according to standards you have to remove or change the position of the ads.

Step 5: Perform an Off-Page SEO Audit

Off-Page SEO refers to methods and techniques you can use to promote your website on the Internet.

SEO Backlinks are considered by the Google algorithm as ‘votes of trust’ and websites with good quality backlinks tend to rank higher in Google search results.

Off-site SEO is important but if you are not careful about what you are doing and if you don’t know what exactly you are allowed to do and what not, it is also very risky.

Low-quality incoming links can be a very good reason for Google to penalize your website

Step 6: Perform a Social Media Audit

It’s difficult to survive online without having a satisfactory social media presence; it is as simple as that.

If you disrepair social media and depend on search marketing then it’s like putting all your eggs in one basket and your risk is higher.

To make a living online, you have to differentiate both your traffic and income sources and dependency on a single source (i.e. Google) is not the way to go.

Social media affects your SEO efforts both directly (in the form of links) and indirectly (more exposure which may create more natural links and direct visits), so it is a factor that can influence your efforts to have a properly optimized website.

Basically, what you have to check in this section is whether you have a proper presence in the most important social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest), whether it’s easy for people to find and follow you in those channels.

Why Web App Security Testing Critical to Build Secure Apps

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security-testing

There are a lot of ways that put websites and web app security at critical; however, the scale of threat varies as does the difficulty in hacking.

Imagine if it can be as serious as leaking of valuable information or personal images for a common user, how severe can it be for companies who protect the valuable data of millions of users; even large corporates or software service providers. It is way beyond one can imagine!

For hacked users, they take the extra precaution of changing passwords or using more secured firewalls; yet there’s no guarantee that they won’t face a similar calamity again. Hence arises the question, what security measures to take which can avert such breaches in the future?

What is Web App Security Testing?

Ever thought where lies the credibility of the websites who promise uncompromised security to their clients, when they cannot protect their own? The focus should be on finding loopholes in the application’s security during building it; rather than pondering over how to strengthen the firewall when the fortress has already been breached.

The amusing part of the story is that these bugs are usually critical mistakes by the developers. There lay so many cases of website hacking in front of us that make you question the immunity of sharing and/or storing data on the Internet and clouds. Some pretty recent incidents which have made headlines and become topics of big discussions have raised these security concerns.

Recently after attending a seminar with the OWASP team, I realized that although we think we are following the best Quality Assurance methods yet there are ambiguities overlooked on our part as developers and lead to disasters for the client at a later stage. It is time we hand down the necessity of best practices that are going unnoticed in most cases.

The below-mentioned list of vulnerabilities is the most common impact of coding carelessness, by the hands of developers. The list is long hence we will be covering a few critical ones here.

Injections

When the control plane data is injected into the user-controlled data plane thus modifying the control flow of the process; it results in the disclosure of useful and data-sensitive information. Injection issues occur mostly due to logic errors, caused either due to lack of knowledge or the habit of doing smart work when cautiousness is required. Amongst other threats caused due to injection problem, there is a lot of data, jeopardized authentication and loss of data integrity. It is broadly classified under these three categories:

1. Code Injection

Improper validation of data is the main cause of code injection; a code is inserted into the application which is later executed by it leading to loss of availability and/or accountability. Inaccuracy when validating data formats or the extent of predictable data leaves the gap for the hackers to tamper and use code injections.

Amongst the varied types of code injection, I have pointed out the major two here:

a) SQL Injection

The commonest injection in ASP and PHP, an SQL query is injected through the input data from the client to the application. An SQL injection can affect the performance of predefined SQL commands. It can lead to destroying data or making it unavailable; the hacker can even become the administrator of the database server.

b) HTML Script Injection

The hacker inserts their own content into the page using valid HTML values, often parameterized. The attacker creates a malignant content along with HTML codes and sends it to the user. The receiver takes it to be coming from a trusted source and clicks on it. As soon as the user fills in his username and password it reaches the hacker, thus causing a huge loss to the former.

2. Command Injection

Inserting the command injection in the host application is possible when the latter is passing unsafe cookies to a system shell. The motive of the hacker usually is implementing random commands on the operating system of the host. Although the hacker is unable to add his own code as is the case with code injection however, it points out that your application is vulnerable.

3. Broken Authentication and Session Management

For developers who often prefer to create their own session tokens; although most application development environment has the session capability; it turns out to be riskier. If your session identifiers and authentication credentials have not been protected with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), from defects like cross-site scripting (elaborated below), the hacker can easily break-in into a running session posing as a user.

4. Cross-Site Scripting

CSRF or Cross-Site Request Forgery makes the user execute undesired actions on a web application with the aid of social engineerings, such as sending malicious links via mail or chat. This must-have happened with many of you, here I will explain the reason why it happens even when you take the precaution of using a secret cookie.
In general cross-site scripting happens when a hacker sends malicious codes or links to the end-user, usually in the form of a browser side script. XSS can lead to some major issues like disclosing the data in secured files; sending out malicious links from the account of the end-user ultimately compromising the whole account; inserting viruses into the database etc.

Even your secure cookies will not be helpful in this regard since XSS code will have access to all your details, the only way is to perform a security review of the code.

Some Protection Measures

As goes the saying a stitch in time saves time, I would like to put forward these easy to adopt security tools and ethics for my fellow developers:

1. Headers

Using secured HTTP headers is one of the best practices for making safe your connections to the server. Applying headers in the web server configuration such as Apache, Nginx, etc; is helpful if you want to strengthen the defense mechanisms of your new applications.

For example, X-Frame-Options denies rendering within one frame; it does not render if the origins do not match but allow rendering when carried out frame by frame from the domain. The other secured headers that can be used are X-Content-Type-Options, Strict-Transport-Security.

2. Password Protection Measures

There should be no restriction on the password strength i.e. the size and complexity of characters. Moreover, the storage of passwords should be in the encrypted form; preferably in the hashed format because it is irreversible. The definite number of login attempts and informing the user of the timings of their logins as well as failed login attempts are commonly applied helpful secured practices.

3. Secured Session ID

Guarding your session transit with the help of SSL is amongst the best ways to save your day. The session id should ideally be never included in the URL; they should be long enough that makes them impossible to be guessed. Never accept a session-id suggested by a user!

4. Avoiding Hidden Components

Authentication of every component with the other is highly important; applying strong procedural and architecture mechanisms prevents the misuse of site architecture as it progresses over time. Using no-cache tag deters from going back to the login page using the back button and obtaining the resubmitted user credentials.

These are simple measures if taken will keep you on the safer side.

Top 5 Cross-Platform App Frameworks

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Top-5-Hybrid-Mobile-App-Frameworks-For-Cross-Platform-App-Development

There are a number of cross-platform app frameworks out there, each with their own set of pros and cons, however, as per the following trend where we have picked the most competitive and top-performing frameworks available in the market today.

  1. Xamarin:

Loved by Developers, Trusted by Enterprise

Xamarin was launched in 2011 as an independent cross-app development framework but was later acquired by Microsoft in 2016, thus lending it more credibility than before.

It is an open-source framework that was launched to solve the problem of disjointed native technology stacks, which made mobile app development a difficult and expensive affair.

Pros of Xamarin

  1. Xamarin app development uses C# for coding, meaning that it works seamlessly on an array of platforms (including Android and iOS).
  2. Xamarin has a strong community of over 60,000 contributors from more than 3,700 companies.
  3. Share more than 75% of your code across platforms, for “write once, run anywhere” ease.
  4. A single tech stack for faster development

Cons of Xamarin

  1. It is expensive for enterprises. Xamarin is a framework that comes free for individuals and startups.
  2. Xamarin is not recommended for apps that demand heavy graphics because each platform has a different method for visually laying out screens. A UX/UI-rich application is advised to be executed natively.
  3. It also offers limited access to certain vital libraries that the app developers need for mobile app development. Also, since the core of its user-interface conception is not mobile, creating the UI is time-consuming.

Apps Made with Xamarin Cross-Platform App Framework

  • Fox Sports
  • Alaska Airlines
  • HCL
  • American Cancer Society
  • BBC Good Food
  1. React Native:

Learn Once, Write Anywhere

React Native is an effort by Facebook launched in 2015, and it did cause a wave in the market for hybrid frameworks. Within a few years of its primer in the market, it is already one of the most popular ones and the most trending one we discussed here.

Pros of React Native

  1. Up to 80% of a codebase can be shared across platforms, depending on the difficulty of the app.
  2. Apart from code reusability, it allows you to preview results right away, besides offering readymade elements, thus shortening the developing time significantly.
  3. “Hot reloading” feature enables developers to see changes made in code within seconds not minutes as when using native technologies.
  4. React Native emphases on UI to a great extent rendering a highly responsive interface.
  5. It also gives you access to certain great native functionalities like accelerometer and camera. The result it renders is a high-quality native-like user interface.

Cons of React Native

  1. React Native is not fully a cross-platform app framework. To use some functions like a camera or accelerometer you have to use native components, so there will be a separate code for Android and iOS.
  2. Since the framework is not built in conjunction with iOS or Android, it lags behind the native platforms at times. This is one of the reasons that led Udacity to stop investing in React Native for new features.
  3. React Native lacks consistency when it comes to releasing the updates.
  4. React Native improves the speed of development, but also increases the duration of the debugging process, especially on Android.

Apps Made with React Native Cross-Platform App Framework

  • Instagram
  • Bloomberg
  • Pinterest
  • Skype
  • Tesla
  1. Flutter:

Beautiful Native Apps in No-Time

Flutter is another open source and free cross-platform framework for creating native interfaces for Android as well as iOS. Google announced Flutter in February 2018 at Mobile World Congress and released its first version on December 5th, 2018, and this makes ‘Flutter’ in this list of cross-platform app frameworks.

Flutter is a cross-platform app framework and Google maintained it.

In the Developer Survey Results, 2019 Flutter is amongst the top 3 most loved frameworks and it add another complexity to the existing popularity of the Reactive Native framework.

Pros of Flutter

  1. “Hot reloading” feature enables developers to see changes made in code within seconds not minutes as when using native technologies.
  2. It is an ideal framework for MVP development. Instead of spending extra money and time on two separate apps, you can build a Flutter mobile application rapidly that looks native on both Android and iOS.
  3. Flutter is based on Dart, an object-oriented programming language that developers have found rather easy to acquire the skill for.
  4. Flutter has a full set of widgets in Google’s Material Design and in Apple’s style with the Cupertino pack.
  5. Many ready-made solutions for native Android and iOS apps enable you to work with Continuous Integration platforms like Travis and Jenkins.

Cons of Flutter

  1. There is limited TV support with apps built on Flutter framework i.e, Flutter offers no support for Android TV and Apple TV.
  2. Though by the virtue of being developed by Google, there are several libraries with ready-to-implement functionalities, Flutter still lacks with respect to native development.
  3. Since Flutter-enabled apps use built-in widgets and not platform widgets, therefore the size of the app is usually bigger. Currently, the smallest possible app made with Flutter can weigh no less than 4MB.

Apps Made with Flutter Cross-Platform App Framework

  • Alibaba
  • Google
  • Google Ads
  • Tencent
  1. Adobe PhoneGap:

Build amazing mobile apps powered by open web tech

PhoneGap was previously known as Apache Cordova and  Adobe owned it. It is a simple cross-platform app development framework that uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.

Pros of Adobe PhoneGap

  1. It allows you to share the application with the team to garner their feedback.
  2. It also offers a cloud solution in case you want to create your app directly.
  3. Features like access to third-party tools, a large community (the one behind the free and open-source Apache Cordova), and a large number of plugins, make it better than its competitors.
  4. It uses an intuitive desktop as for mobile app development and then serves the app created on the desktop to mobile devices connected to it.

Cons of Adobe PhoneGap

  1. PhoneGap is not recommended for high-performance applications and hardware intensive apps like gaming apps due to its poor performance and lack of UI Widgets.
  2. PhoneGap is dependent on iOS SDKs to build an app and downloading these SDKs requires a Mac.
  3. Apps built with PhoneGap to incline to go a little low on performance as related to native apps

Apps Made with PhoneGap Cross-Platform App Framework

  • Wikipedia
  • TripCase
  • FanReact
  1. Ionic:

Make App Creation Lightning Fast

Ionic is an open-source cross-platform app framework and licensed under MIT. It uses HTML5 for translation. Very similar to AngularJS in design and structure. It also inherits a few design elements from iOS as well as Android. It allows you to build native-like hybrid apps for Android and iOS as well as progressive web apps. Ionic has introduced Ionic React: One codebase. Any Platform. Now in React.

Pros of Ionic

  1. Ionic is based on a SAAS UI framework designed specifically for mobile operating systems. It provides numerous UI components for developing robust applications.
  2. The Ionic framework allows you to ship continuously. From automated native builds to live updating and CI/CD, Ionic App flow addresses the entire mobile
  3. DevOps
  4. A vibrant community of more than 5M developers in over 200 countries back Ionic.

Cons of Ionic

  1. The knowledge of AngularJS becomes almost a necessity if one wants to go beyond basic apps.
  2. Designing in-app navigation is complex because of its not-so-easy-to-use UI-router.

Apps Made with Ionic Cross-Platform App Framework

  • IBM
  • ING
  • SAP
  • NASA

Cross-Platform App Development in 2023

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Cross-Platform-App-Development

As it stands true in today’s ever-evolving mobile app development world, where 2.5 and 1.8 million apps exist on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store respectively. Apps on the Apple Store is expected to see an increase of 181.1%.

In such a situation, businesses wouldn’t risk missing their presence on either platform. Costing, however, is usually a matter if businesses go for native apps. This is why cross-platform app development has arisen as the unbeatable choice of businesses that aim for a presence on Android as well as iOS.

Before we move ahead let’s find out where these frameworks stand in 2023:

What is Cross-App Platform Framework?

At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg said:

“The biggest mistake we’ve made as a company is betting on HTML5 over native.”

Indeed, the world of software has transformed a lot since Zuckerberg made that statement in 2012. Today, the future is in the hands of cross-platform app frameworks.

Cross-platform app development frameworks allow developers to create mobile applications that are well-matched with more than one operating system, i.e. iOS and Android. It provides us the ability to write the code once, and then use it anywhere on other platforms too. Therefore, enabling to release a product/software faster, safer, and with better quality.

The Difference Between Native and Cross-Platform App Development

Native vs cross-platform is a never-ending debate that has kept the tech community divided for years. There are a few experts who prefer native apps over cross-platform apps, on the other hand, companies like Uber are coming up with their cross-platform app framework—Ribs.

Both native and cross-platform app development technologies are in a continuous state of progression. This varying nature of technologies signals that these subjects should be revisited from time to time to check which of these options is currently leading the game.

  • Native app development eschews the complexity of creating a sustainable product that spans multiple platforms and instead focuses on generating a competent design that stays close to the target platform–Android, iOS, etc.
  • Cross-platform frameworks pursue to produce apps that reach out to as many followers of your brand as possible by covering a wide number of end devices during the programming and creation process.

The Benefits of Cross-Platform App Development

  1. Code Reusability
    Ease of code reusability is one of the biggest upsides that hybrid app development offers. Anyone can use the code for multiple platforms. So, it’s half the effort and time as compared to native app development.
  2. Cost-Effectiveness
    It offers a relatively lower cost of development as compared to native app development since the code is written once and used for both (or more) platforms.
  3. Consistency in UI Components
    Cross-platform apps offer a decent extent of consistency in native UI components of the device. The look and feel are uniforms.
  4. Easy Hosting
    It is easy to host on respective app stores once all the requirements have been fulfilled.
  5. Cloud Integration
    Integration with the cloud environment is easy. You can even integrate them quickly with enterprise-grade plugins thus offering universal compatibility.
  6. Fewer Technical Barriers
    Developers encounter fewer technical barriers as there is no need to learn specific languages like Objective-C or Swift. Proficiency in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS3 suffices for cross-platform app development.

Top 5 Cross-Platform App Frameworks

There are a number of cross-platform app frameworks out there, each with their own set of pros and cons, however, as per the following trend where we have picked the top-performing frameworks available today.

  1. Xamarin: Loved by Developers, Trusted by Enterprise

Xamarin was launched in 2011 as an independent cross-app development framework but was later acquired by Microsoft in 2016, thus lending it more credibility than before.

It is an open-source framework that was launched to solve the problem of disjointed native technology stacks, which made mobile app development a difficult and expensive affair.

Apps Made with Xamarin Cross-Platform App Framework
  • Fox Sports
  • Alaska Airlines
  • HCL
  • American Cancer Society
  • BBC Good Food
  1. React Native: Learn Once, Write Anywhere

React Native is an endeavor that Facebook launched in 2015, and it did cause a wave in the market for hybrid frameworks. Within a few years of its introduction in the market, it is already one of the most popular ones.

Apps Made with React Native Cross-Platform App Framework
  • Instagram
  • Bloomberg
  • Pinterest
  • Skype
  • Tesla
  1. Flutter: Beautiful Native Apps in No-Time

Flutter is an open-source and free cross-platform framework for creating native interfaces for Android as well as iOS. Google announced Flutter recently in February 2018 at Mobile World Congress and released its first version on December 5th, 2018, and soon ‘Flutter’ in this list of cross-platform app frameworks.

Flutter is a cross-platform app framework maintained by Google, the very same organization that develops the Android Native Framework.

Apps Made with Flutter Cross-Platform App Framework
  • Alibaba
  • Google
  • Google Ads
  • Tencent
  1. Adobe PhoneGap: Build amazing mobile apps powered by open web tech

PhoneGap was previously known as Apache Cordova. It is a simple cross-platform app development framework that uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.

Apps Made with PhoneGap Cross-Platform App Framework
  • Wikipedia
  • TripCase
  • FanReact
  1. Ionic: Make App Creation Lightning Fast

Ionic is an open-source cross-platform app framework and licensed under MIT. It uses HTML5 for translation. Very similar to AngularJS in design and structure. It also gets a few design elements from iOS as well as Android. It allows you to build native-like hybrid apps for Android and iOS as well as progressive web apps.

PS: Ionic has introduced Ionic React: One codebase. Any Platform. Now in React.

Apps Made with Ionic Cross-Platform App Framework
  • IBM
  • ING
  • SAP
  • NASA

Conclusion

Cross-platform solutions are effective; however, they did not gain enough mileage since their birth due to division in mobility platforms. Now that the mobile app development world is largely divided into two large platforms— Android & iOS—cross-platform development is expected to experience much more advancement very soon.

The question is which out of mentioned cross-platform app frameworks should you choose? The straightforward answer: it depends.

11 of the Most Popular Types of Websites

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types of websites

It’s thought that as many as 380 new websites are created every minute. That’s over six websites every single second!

With so many different Types of Websites out there, it makes sense to sort them all into many different ‘types’. In fact, when talking about types of websites, you could write a list that goes on forever – not that we plan to, of course!

Websites can be categorized in terms of functionality, design, and content. This means that if you were to ask an editor to name ‘the different types of website’, they would give you a completely different answer to a web developer or casual shopper.

Popular Types of Websites

It might not be realistic to list every single type of website, but here are 11 that crop up again and again. Bear in mind that most websites could (and probably will!) fit into one or more of these categories:

1. Blog

A blog is a website that’s regularly updated, run by one person or a small group, and is normally written in a laid-back style.

In terms of the content, when it comes to blogging, the world really is your oyster. Hell, there’s even a blog about oysters!

Even if your site won’t be a blog, it’s still a handy extra feature to add interest and authority to your site. Just make sure you’re committed to keeping it fresh and updated!

2. Business

A business website is any kind of website that represents your business. Even small local businesses need a simple online presence (see ‘Brochure’ below) to be taken seriously in today’s digitally-minded world.

A website is one of the easiest ways to show what your business is all about, and find those all-important new customers. Your website should have an about page, and details of how people can find you. After that, the sky’s the limit. Check out our ‘Ecommerce’ section below for businesses that plan to sell directly through their website.

3. Brochure

When categorizing websites by functionality, a ‘brochure’ website is the simplest type. Brochure websites typically only have a few pages and are used by small businesses that need a simple online presence. They effectively act as an online brochure, giving an overview of what the business is, and how you can get in touch. The content on these websites is generally pretty ‘static’ – that’s to say it’s rarely updated.

4. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is the modern way to fund your idea. From the sublime to the ridiculous, crowdfunding was the secret to bringing everything from fidget cubes to meat soap to market.

Crowdfunding websites work by taking ‘pledges’ of different amounts from lots of people, in order to hit the target amount needed to produce the product. Popular crowdfunding websites include Kickstarter and Crowdcube.

5. Ecommerce

An e-commerce website is any website that directly sells a product or service. Not to be confused with a business website, with an e-commerce website you can add products or services into your cart, and pay for them through the site. Ecommerce makes up an ever-increasing portion of sales in the US.

6. Educational

The term ‘educational’ covers a broad range of websites.

Educational websites use any combination of games, articles, videos, and images to educate their audience. These might be geared towards fun learning for children or offer courses to adults, such as Coursera and EdX.

7. Media or Entertainment

Media websites contain regularly updated content on current affairs, weather, sports, and entertainment. News sites like CNN and entertainment sites like ELLE both fall into this category.

The content on media sites is dynamic, meaning it’s updated regularly. Big media sites will publish multiple articles and videos every single day.

8. Nonprofit

Nonprofits may not be classed as businesses in the same way, but they still need a website. These will generally be quite simple, outlining what the nonprofit is about and showing visitors how they can get involved, donate, or support in some other way. Nonprofit websites will often have a function to collect email addresses, and to create a database of people interested in keeping in touch with the organization through newsletters.

9. Personal

You might have heard the phrase ‘personal brand’ bandied around, and having a website can form a huge part of this.

Share pictures, share thoughts or treat your site like a digital CV. The choice is yours!

You don’t need to be creative (see ‘Portfolio’ below) or a blogger (see ‘Blog’ above) to benefit from having your own website – and you don’t even need to spend any money-making one.

10. Portal

Portal websites, like Yahoo, bring together information from lots of different sites and present them in one place.

Web portals can be internal websites for organizations like schools, or for big businesses. It’s a centralized place to share news, training, and updates, and for students or employees to access their emails and files. Users will need their own specific login to access these portals.

11. Portfolio


If you’re a writer, artist or designer, you’ll want to go one step further than a personal website – this is where a portfolio website can help.

These are a way for creatives to showcase their work to future employees, market themselves as freelancers, and generally get their name (and work) out into the big wide world.

Different types of content management systems

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CMS

When selecting a content management systems (CMS) for your business, it helps to comprehend the variances between the numerous types, their features and functions, and pricing models.

Types & examples of content management systems:

1- Open-source CMS

You can download open source CMS software at no initial cost. There are no authorization or advancement fees, or agreements. However, with open source CMS you may have to pay for:

  • Technical help during installation and setup
  • Customization to encompass the software beyond the essential offering
  • Well-matched templates, add-ons, and plugins (although free versions may be available)
  • Staff training
  • Care, including regularly apprising the software

Examples of the most widely used open-source CMS platforms include:

You can install and manage open source CMS on a web server. While most answers work out of the box, countless customizations are available to meet the different business needs, such as plugins for e-commerce websites, tools to help you enhance content for search engines or customize your design themes and plans.

2- Proprietary CMS

Proprietary or saleable CMS software is built and managed by a single company. Using such CMS generally involves:

  • Buying a license fee to use the software
  • Paying monthly or annual charges for updates or support

You may also need to pay additional costs for customization and upgrades, as well as for training and ongoing technical or user support.

Examples of popular CMS solutions include:

You can usually modify proprietary CMS with built-in functionalities, although this may come at extra cost. If possible, look for a CMS solution that meets all of your necessities out of the box. If you are applying a proprietary CMS with an existing website or back-end system, be aware that this may require extensive development work.

3- Software as a Service (SaaS) CMS

SaaS CMS solutions usually include web content management software, web hosting, and technical support with a single supplier. These are cybernetic solutions hosted in the cloud and based on a subscription model, usually on a per-user or per-site basis. The pricing usually includes:

  • Amount of data allocation (i.e. Bandwidth to and from your site)
  • Storage for your content and data
  • Ongoing support

There are two types of cloud content management systems:

  • ‘Fully cloud’ CMS often comes as part of a bundle or package. Naturally, these are proprietary systems under the provider’s control, so it isn’t always possible to customize or alter their functionality to suit your needs.
  • ‘Partial cloud’ CMS is located on your own cloud web-server. It provides for greater elasticity since you can adjust the functionality, either with add-on modules or by altering the source code.

Cloud CMS offers some noteworthy benefits to small and medium-sized businesses. For example:

  • Costs are generally low – small set up fee usually covers a basic implementation
  • SaaS supplier deals with upgrades, maintenance, and technical issues
  • The software is accessible from any computer, laptop or mobile with an internet connection
  • Updates to software and features are available in real-time
  • Packages are easily scalable – you can add more sites or users as your needs change