Top Software Development Trends in 2021

2020 was a year of total uncertainties due to the outbreak of the global pandemic. But it was the period that sped up digital transformation significantly. Software experts are positive that in the coming months of 2021, more of such phenomenal trends in the software development industry can be witnessed.

In 2021, enterprise software development alone had a global spending of 517 billion USD. There are around 23.9 million software developers worldwide. These whopping figures are signs that software industries’ growth will skyrocket in the coming years.

Individuals and businesses depend on software applications to carry out daily tasks- software has a crucial role to play in this Information Age. Therefore it is no wonder that spending on enterprise software had the biggest growth rate in the tech industry in 2020. In 2021, it is expected to grow further. This trend in the enterprise software market has helped in offsetting the pullbacks caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Which are the different software development frameworks that helped the IT industry to sustain and further flourish over the last two years? The list is long, but this article limits the depiction to the top trends only.  Let’s have a quick understanding of the software development trends in 2021.

What are the major software trends in 2021?

Cross-platform and Hybrid Development:

Cross-platform development is already a time-saver for a number of industries these days. Studies show that development will be mostly native in 2021. Mobile platforms will have a common back-end code base- thus there will be added functionalities and time to market. 

Cross development engine has back-end code sharing ability as in cross-platform development. This will help businesses achieve impressive results and cross-platform and hybrid development will become businesses’ most-liked  in the coming years.

Cloud Services:

Shifting to the cloud has been one major trend in the IT industry. Of the various cloud services, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform represented around one-third of the overall software market. SaaS has comparatively less total ownership costs. Also, the ease of implementation is very simple compared to the traditional system. For these reasons, the uptrend in the cloud service sector will grow more in 2021 and beyond.

Cloud was the smartest solution to data stockpiling. Businesses are quickly shifting from physical information servers to the cloud. The sooner business becomes a bit of it at the foremost punctual, the better!

AI continues to reign!

AI has supported other technologies in several aspects. Software industry experts opine that the reign of AI will continue as industries are largely into AI adoption.

Forecasts show that AI software will keep up its pace in the software industry in the forthcoming years. AI is a buzzword that will top the technology field and it will become more powerful, and affordable for industries in all levels.

Sectors like E-commerce, healthcare, education, and entertainment apps are expected to integrate deep learning, machine learning, speech processing, and more to ease things up. Looking for solutions that can deliver custom software experiences to your clients? Try AI adoption and see your business progressing in developing custom software cost-effectively for your clients.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

What do you prefer? Websites or web apps? Well, websites are easily accessible while web apps have capabilities in terms of functionalities and performance. This is because web apps have the firm support of platform-specific hardware. In this regard, PWA has been gaining attention among the software industries. 

Progressive web apps are still in an infancy state, but have succeeded in becoming a valuable compromise between accessibility and performance. PWA enables users with less data consumption and faster loading time. Web development has been revolutionized with PWA as its app-like features into browser windows.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The internet of things, or IoT, is an advanced computing platform which consists of connected digital devices, systems and objects that are equipped with unique identifiers. 

AI powered devices like Alexa, sensors in cars to alert the driver when the tire pressure is low, and a continuous glucose monitoring system to alert a diabetic patient when the glucose levels are low are a few examples of IoT.

Many organizations in a variety of industries are using IoT to streamline their operations and perform effectively to understand end users in order to increase the value of business and stay as the main players in the market.

An IoT platform comprises smart devices that use embedded systems, such as data processors, sensors and communication hardware which captures, transmits and responds to the data they receive from surroundings.

Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD)

CI/CD is an important technique in software development. It reduces the time cycle of app delivery and ensures frequent and effective bug fixing. By enabling CI/CD in software development models, developers can experiment in software development and find more scope for creating flexible apps. 

Continuous delivery refers to app production for thorough testing and continuous deployment refers to automatic updating. 

Codes have a shared repository that is tested for enabling continuous delivery. Thus developers can improve software functionalities and deliver products faster. IT experts believe that more industries will have stories of CI/CD adoption journeys to share in the coming years. 

Low-code Development

Software development and digital solutions were once under the spectrum of dedicated teams of software developers and architects. As an expensive solution, such services could be leveraged only by large-sized businesses. With low coding platforms, businesses of any size could utilize the simplified version of traditional complex programming languages. 

Low code platform had the capabilities to revolutionize the global software market. How can low-code development fortify the software market? It offers automation and enables developers to deploy simple interfaces for new app building. Also, these development platforms require low operational costs, reduced time and effort for creating intelligent apps. 

Conclusion:

The current trends show that programming languages appearing at the vanguard of software development are on the cards. The software industry will witness new technologies emerging and some of the 2020 buzzwords declining. Software development has always seen high competition impacting a multitude of sectors. It is beyond doubt that it will continue to grow and become more diversified in the approaching years.