All software development companies look similar at a glance.
This is where rankings help.
But rankings can also be confusing. Is a company with 4.9 stars for 35 reviews better than a company with 4.8 stars for 135 reviews?
You never know until you dig deeply into further details.
To help you out, we prepared a list of top mobile app development companies. Use it to find a team for your next project or as an example list to compose your own. For the latter, check evaluation criteria and points to consider.
Remember: always add a company to your list based on its expertise.
List of top mobile app development companies 2021
Below we have curated a list of top mobile app companies based on their Clutch profiles and verified reviews:
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IT Craft Berlin, GermanyProject size
Any; most projects are small to mid-sized.
$10,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- eLearning
- Healthcare and wellness
- Ecommerce
- Logistics and supply chain
- Business process automation
Key clients
For over 20 years, IT Craft has been helping clients with software development, support, and maintenance.
As a general development company, IT Craft has experience in many industries. It offers a wide technological stack ensuring all customer needs are covered with the right technology. Clients get advice on technical implementation and best software architecture—including budget, expected number of users, deadlines, and a feature list.
Company’s developers place a special emphasis on the project discovery stage. When needed, they provide extra business analysis sessions to ensure everything is covered in the project documentation.
Different types of cooperation are possible: custom projects from scratch, project rescue, expansion, maintenance, and more.
The company focuses on small to mid-sized projects. However, IT Craft developers have successfully delivered many large projects.
Included among IT Craft’s many strong points are efficiently allocating missing resources, transparent project management, and maintaining a custom-tailored approach to each project. With these qualities and more, IT Craft has established itself as a long-term partner to many of its clients.
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Cheesecake Labs San Francisco, CAProject size
Wide range. Most projects are small to mid-sized.
$25,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- Social networks
- CRM
- Education
- Travel and lifestyle
- Ecommerce
Key clients
Cheesecake Labs was founded in 2013 to help many startups deliver mobile apps solve real-world problems.
The company’s 60+ engineering team has all the required expertise to provide support and guidance throughout the entire development cycle. The team focuses on both iOS and Android platforms plus building a strong back end. Developers use both cross-platform and native approaches to build mobile apps. Custom Web development is also possible.
The team focuses mostly on small and mid-sized projects.
Cheesecake Labs developers often build apps from scratch. They also help update, expand, and maintain existing solutions. Clients benefit from its flexibility and prompt communication.
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hedgehog lab London, Great BritainProject size
Mid-sized to large.
$75,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- Financing
- Healthcare and wellness
- Ecommerce
- Enterprise apps
- Consumer apps
Key clients
Founded in 2007, hedgehog lab is a digital product consultancy with many world-known brands among its clients.
The company focuses on both crucial sides of product development: UX/UI and code development. hedgehog lab provides services in product discovery, design, development, and scaling. To be able to do this, the company invests heavily in the team ensuring expertise in different areas, prompt communication, and straightforward workflow.
The company’s technical expertise is centered around native iPhone and Android apps. Web apps and websites are also possible. Mid-sized and large projects prevail in its portfolio.
However, hedgehog lab’s developers can also work on simple apps confined by a limited budget. The team can also help with market research and making sense of collected analytics.
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Fueled New York City, USAProject size
Large to mid-sized.
$75,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- Social networking
- Ecommerce
- Publishing and digital content
- Education
- Health and wellness
Key clients
Fueled is among the top mobile app companies serving clients for whom mobile app development is a part of a bigger digital transformation strategy. Fueled works successfully with both startups and large companies.
The company offers an established development workflow covering all stages of the development process. Apart from designing the technical side of solutions, the company also helps its clients with strategy and digital marketing.
With award-winning apps under its belt and multiple enterprise-level solutions for world-known brands, Fueled focuses on mid-sized and large projects. However, the teams also launch small projects.
Post-launch services are also included.
The company’s clients are happy with the quality level of the services provided.
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Five New York City, USAProject size
Mid-sized to large.
$10,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- Education
- Social
- Business intelligence
- CRM
- Sales
Key clients
Based in Brooklyn, NY, and Zagreb, Croatia, Five is more of a growth agency than a pure mobile development company. Nonetheless, it provides an exceptional level of mobile app development services to its clients making it worth including in top mobile app maker companies.
Five focuses on product design services. Company’s teams provide services in product discovery and growth marketing, from market research and design of user journey through copywriting to user acquisition. High-quality mobile apps are a part of these services.
Company’s experience centers mostly on mid-sized and large projects striving to bring clients most value for their budget.
Because the company Five has set a high-level bar of client expectations, it might take time to scale resources on a particular project. However, the company always does its best to meet promises regarding timeline, budget, and value.
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Tapptitude Cluj-Napoca, RomaniaProject size
Small to mid-sized.
$25,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- CRM
- Sales
- Publishing and digital content
- Health and wellness
- Social
Key clients
This Romania-based company has received 5.0 stars on Clutch which is really challenging for every company with 20+ reviews.
Tapptitude provides full-cycle development services to its clients and keeps all required expertise in-house. The company maintains a high standard of its services. As a general development company, it is flexible and offers different cooperation models and managerial approaches.
The company focuses mainly on smaller and mid-sized projects. They can also work on a large solution.
The company invests heavily in client communication and strives for clarity in its communication, avoiding any misunderstanding.
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Miquido Kraków, PolandProject size
Mid-sized to large.
$25,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
- Finances
- Health and wellness
- Ecommerce
- Education
Key clients
This Polish company excels at offering quality mobile app development services. Miquido can handle projects of any complexity. Range of services includes UX design, native and cross-platform development, digital transformation and app modernization, and more.
As part of its added value, the company offers participation in Amazon partner network and is a Google-certified agency.
Miquido focuses on mid-sized and large solutions. It is also adept at delivering small apps.
Miquido’s portfolio includes apps for both large enterprises and MVPs for startups.
Among the company’s strengths, clients mention fast response and transparency.
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STRV LA, CA / Prague, Czech RepublicProject size
Small to mid-sized to large.
$50,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- Social
- Ecommerce
- Education
- Financing
- Health and wellness
Key clients
STRV delivers software solutions to clients of all sizes. The team can start on product development from scratch. In this case, a range of services can include not only software engineering but also market research and strategy. It also works on improving existing products by increasing quality level and adding missing features. Team augmentation is also possible.
In terms of technologies, the company works on native iOS/Android apps, cross-platform React Native, and progressive web apps.
STRV always strives to provide the best quality and attains the highest expectations. This is why the company buys into the hiring process to find and retain proactive developers who can take ownership of their work.
The company can handle all types of projects from small prototypes and MVPs for startups to large enterprise-level solutions.
Clients point out that developers are great at meeting deadlines.
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Algoworks LA, CAProject size
Small to mid-sized.
$5,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- Games
- Enterprise
- Social
Key clients
Algoworks streamlines offshore development strategy for different businesses. The company offers help with a project’s technological side, marketing activities, and app store optimization. The range of technical services includes design, native and cross-platform development, DevOps, and more.
It is possible to start a small project with Algorwork. The team can help with collecting requirements, making a prototype or an MVP, update a project, or optimize maintenance costs.
Mid-sized and large projects are also possible.
Among clients’ commentaries, clients advise on keeping constant touch with the team and setting up requirements/expectations. (This is great advice for working with many outsourcing companies.)
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Blue Label Labs New York City, USAProject size
Mid-sized to large.
$75,000+Technical focus:
Key industries
Tap on icon to clarify- Business intelligence
- CRM
- Sales
- Education
- Financing
- Games
Key clients
Just like other NYC-based agencies on this list, Blue Label Labs helps its clients with business consulting & strategy—in addition to custom mobile app development.
Blue Label Labs has an especially strong focus on the visual part of projects. The company’s specialists concentrate on removing obstacles and product validation on real users. This ensures delivery of UX that end users love. The app UI will continue to look good long into the future.
The team also works with the same efficiency on the technical side of projects.
The company focuses on mid-sized and large development projects.
Flexibility and ability to dig deeper by asking the right questions are among Blue Label Labs’s strengths. This helps create a firm basis for an app’s success.
How do we evaluate top mobile app development companies?
To compose this mobile app development companies list, we went through several sources, including Clutch, Goodfirms, AppFutura, App Development Companies, Techreviewer, and Softwareworld.
Our study soon centered around Clutch rankings because Clutch provides the largest base of verified reviews, a straightforward, transparent methodology, and a detailed company’s profile section.
We chose the following parameters for selecting top mobile app companies:
- 30+ reviews in profile
- ≥ 50% focus on mobile app development
- Strong total rating
- Strong best/worst review ratio
- Portfolio strength
- Recent client impressions on cooperation and advice on areas of improvement
This way, we aimed at picking up only companies that have collected large feedback from satisfied clients. Also, this is why we excluded companies with recent 0.5 – 2.0 ratings.
It is worth noting that ratings are arbitrary and correlate with client expectations rather than with any metrics. Reading sections on overall impressions and advice on improvement has helped us make sure the company does its best to deliver promises.
What should you focus on when looking for developers?
What might be a problem with any list of top mobile app companies? The list might not work best in your particular case. Provider you chose is too busy, not interested in working on your project type, or priced the job too high for your budget.
For the best results, make your own list and go through a thorough evaluation process to find programmers for your project.
Here is advice on what to keep in mind when doing research:
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Try different filters when searching.
So far, the Clutch directory for top mobile app maker companies contains almost 22,000 firms. You might never see some of them unless you use the filter options. By default, companies paying for sponsorship get high rankings on Clutch—it is Clutch’s monetization model.
Nonetheless, Clutch remains a top source for finding a suitable outsourcing company. It provides a variety of sorting criteria to help those looking for an outsourcing company to make their own solid, informed decisions.
Select different categorizations, e.g., switching to a Clutch ranking for the most reliable providers. You can see it in the right upper corner:
and:
Filter the results by applying the desired minimum budget, hourly rate, industry focus, etc.
Not sure you like what you see? Try a related category, e.g., custom software development.
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Look through project complexity and budget.
Go to the company’s profile and check its specialization and client reviews.
The trickiest thing here: availability of 50+ reviews and a positive rank does not guarantee your project will go smoothly. When the company has many reviews, disaster stories can be hidden in the middle of a pile. Switch sorting from Relevance to Rating: low to high.
Still, even when the profile has no negative feedback, yours could be the first. Check the types of services, budget, and performance from a project management point of view. Make sure the team can efficiently handle the type of work you need.
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Go through the reviews again. Form your own impression.
Again, evaluations depend on perceived value. A company charging $150+ hourly rate might get three stars where a company with $25 will get five stars. Although clients get more, they are pickier because they expect more for their money.
Analyze reasoning for evaluation. Carefully read improvement areas and advice to the future clients. Low ratings might be irrelevant for you and vice versa.
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Reevaluate your needs and expectations.
Revise your expectations. Put yourself into the client’s position and go along the entire journey in your mind. Check where possible pitfalls can be. Make sure you have enough capacity and experience to handle the relationship. Reconsider the points you should cover in the contract. Or consider a more expensive provider.
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Check Glassdoor rating, if possible.
Team retention is crucial for project pace. You need key specialists focused and working on your project, not spending company time (perhaps even on your dime) looking for a better place. Replacement takes time, resulting in decreased project quality and/or overall timeline.
Go through Glassdoor reviews to make sure the atmosphere inside the company is fine.
In conclusion
Finding a development team to meet your needs takes time if you want to get the best value for your money.
The good news: the choice is wide-ranging. Life does not end on the first page of Clutch ranking or any other ranking service.
Use filters to refine search criteria to meet your requirements. Check lowest rankings to see if the company is worth considering.
Go through client impressions and recommendations to determine a company’s limits. Choose the best team for you and enjoy a successful launch.
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