Cross-platform software

"Cross-platform" redirects here. For the railway station interchange, see cross-platform interchange. For the video game term, see cross-platform play.
"Multi-platform" redirects here. For the mode of storytelling in television, see multi-platform television.

In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms.[1] Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.[2]

For example, a cross-platform application may run on Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows. Cross-platform software may run on many platforms, or as few as two. Some frameworks for cross-platform development are Codename One, ArkUI-X, Kivy, Qt, GTK, Flutter, NativeScript, Xamarin, Apache Cordova, Ionic, and React Native.[3]

  1. ^ "Design Guidelines: Glossary". java.sun.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-13. Retrieved 2011-10-19.
  2. ^ "SDD Technology blog: Definition of cross platform". SDD Technology. Retrieved 2020-10-18.
  3. ^ Lee P Richardson (2016-02-16). "Xamarin vs Ionic: A Mobile, Cross Platform, Shootout".