Multi-platform mobile application development provides the user experience and functionality of native apps with the multi-platform compatibility of mobile web apps. This approach provides the best of both worlds and has been gaining a lot of acceptance due to the trade-offs between native development and mobile web approaches. In today’s dynamic marketplace where the future is unclear, cross-platform apps provide a middle ground to achieve success for your mobile strategy. Enterprises today have to think across multiple devices and platforms for any mobile app they want to create. By opting for cross-platform apps, they will be able to not only achieve greater market penetration but also get other benefits such as lower time to market on all supported platforms. By opting for hybrid app development architecture, enterprises can be assured of better code maintainability because of a single code base. Although platforms using other well-known languages, such as C# for.NET, have also arisen, these apps are typically created in "web languages" such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. These are then either compiled into native code and then deployed (aka Appcelerator) or they have native wrappers around them for deployment on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices.

The goal of cross-platform development is to create software that functions well across many digital environments. To market software for more than one proprietary operating system, such as to support use on both Microsoft and Apple platforms, this feature is often pursued. Many forms of cross-platform development have emerged as a result of the growth of mobile devices and other platforms, as well as open-source technologies like Linux. In general, cross-platform development can make a program less efficient. For example, it can require redundant processes or file storage folders for the various systems that it's supposed to support.