Despite the existence of general-purpose languages, depending on the type of digital solution you are going to create, you may need specialists with different sets of skills and different overall expertise. Below, we will briefly overview the existing types of software development, and also determine what their core features are.
What Are the Main Types of Software Development?
The choice in favor of one or another type of software development depends, first of all, on the type of user device on which it will be launched and the operating system that is installed on it. In particular, although there are one-size-fits-all projects that work the same regardless of the platform, they still have some limitations. Below we will shed light on all these features and help you understand which type of software development will suit you best
Web development
This type of development involves creating web applications and websites that run and operate in a web browser. Such software consists of two interconnected parts – a user and a server and, accordingly, implies the involvement of specialists with relevant expertise. Let’s look at the specifics of working on these parts separately below.
Frontend development
Frontend development involves creating a part of the project with which end users interact directly – visuals, navigation, static and dynamic elements, etc. Since such projects imply interactivity, that is, the reaction of the user part to specific users’ actions, the application or website sends the appropriate requests to the server – this actually determines the need to create a server part, too.
Backend development
Backend development requires backend engineers to create the business logic of the project and link it to a database or databases. This is all that the eyes of end users cannot see. At the same time, the backend ensures the interactivity of the project, as we mentioned above.
Full-stack development
Some projects whose technology stack involves the use of the same programming languages can be implemented to a greater extent or even completely by full-stack developers. Based on their extensive expertise (both in HTML/CSS/JS for the frontend and Java/JS/PHP, and so on for the backend), these developers can create both parts – user and server – of the application/website.
Mobile app development
Mobile development is aimed at creating applications for mobile operating systems. As a rule, commercial projects imply compatibility with iOS and Android OS, but they can also be adapted for Windows Mobile, webOS, and other less popular ones. You can also resort to cross-platform development to ensure end-to-end compatibility of your solution with several platforms at once.
iOS app development
This type involves creating applications using native tools and technologies specific to the iOS operating system. In this regard, developers involved in such projects are required to have in-depth knowledge of programming languages such as Objective-C, Swift, and Java, as well as the iOS SDK.
Android app development
The development of Android solutions requires knowledge of the native languages and technologies typical to this operating system, such as Java, Kotlin, and Android Toolkit. Applications created with their help are used on mobile devices based on Android OS.
Cross-platform app development
Cross-platform development is a cost-effective approach to developing mobile solutions as it allows you to create a single project’s code base, adapted to work on selected platforms. If you prefer this approach, you will need a team with experience working with cross-platform frameworks like React Native, Xamarin, Ionic, Flutter, and so on.
Embedded software development
This type of development involves creating applications and services to control machines or devices with a more primitive construction than usual computers. Such solutions are developed for a specific device, not the OS, and limit developers in terms of consumption of this device’s memory resources. Note that the testing of embedded projects has significant differences with the testing of the software types described above.
Desktop app development
Desktop development is about creating standalone solutions that are downloaded and installed on the user’s device. Usually, they work without an Internet connection, which means that all computing operations occur on the user’s side. This, in turn, limits developers to the amount of computing resources on the user device.
DevOps and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
DevOps refers to the use of a specific set of interaction practices within the development team to increase the efficiency of its members and optimize the results of their work. Achieving these goals is a priority in projects where there is a need to regularly launch new versions. As for CI/CD, this is just one of the DevOps techniques, aimed at automating the development cycle for continuous delivery of the created solution to its deployment points.
If you would like to find out what type of development suits you the best, you can follow this link to read the extensive version of this article.