I asked here a question about the most simple and effective cross-platform framework. Climbing the forums saw such a picture that the leaders are usually PhoneGap, Xamarin, Unity, Qt. (Here is an example of a relatively recent post https://habr.com/post/319348/ ) - in it, for example, RAD Studio is not at all.

But if you go to the highly specialized forums dedicated to Delphi, then they all unanimously say that in terms of the breadth of possibilities, the simplicity and speed of development and the cross-platform Fire Monkey (which comes with RAD Studio) are not equal. What they say Qt and Xamarin and not standing next to. The official site of RAD Studio says the same thing in general.

Then a logical question arises: if RAD Studio is so cool, then why is it not in the framework framework ratings? Is it still not as cool as its fans say, or is it the most misunderstood framework?

  • He's still not as cool as his fans say. Tried to develop on it, however, under the desktop (cross-platform Windows-macOS was needed), but it turned out that in 2017 Tokyo still does not have the ability to connect Awesomium (writing their headers is not counted), and, not only in Delphi, but also in C ++ Builder. A-ha-ha ... So I still poked with CEF, but it didn’t work with it - something didn’t work, besides the features of "general purpose" (such as for files and processes) there might be a lot compared to Delphi 7, but not with .NET 4, and eventually threw it and did everything in C #. - SmInc
  • Although, of course, it is clear that the development on a cross-platform framework is always partly "development of the framework itself", "if-Windows -...- elseif-Linux -...", but there is clearly more abruptly. Again, the ability to integrate C # or HTML / CSS / JS costs more than Delphi or C ++ (especially such a rare dialect as builder). - SmInc
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    I do not think that you will get a full answer to your question. Everything expressed will be a private opinion based on "I know how to cook, but I tried it there - and it didn't work out, it means it is like that," which, of course, cannot be an objective criterion. FMX is good enough. Pitfalls and limitations are enough in any framework. The Delphi community is not as big as the rest. IMHO, this is the main problem - few skilled personnel. - kami
  • There is also a problem with the price - PhoneGap, Xamarin, Qt, and Unity can be used for free, albeit with reservations, but you can, and RAD Studio only has a trial of 30 days and a brutal price of several tens or even hundreds of thousands of rubles. Also there used to be (and maybe even now) some kind of tin with work under iOS - the studio itself is criticized on a screw computer, and debugging through a poppy is inconvenient (well, plus again, the question is that you need two computers instead of one that is expensive) . And given that the cross platform is usually primarily savings on development / support, such costs look very large - aknew
  • нужно два компа вместо одного что дорого - I wonder how you will build an iOS application without Xcode, which runs only on a poppy? In any case, you need either a Mac, or a virtual with MacOS. The latter is a very acceptable option. They say that the virtual machine runs even faster. - kami

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I write on Delphi (VCL), C # (Winforms). I tried Qt for myself. This is of course a modest list. But it is enough for some conclusions.

Тогда возникает логический вопрос: если RAD Studio на столько крут, то почему его нет в рейтингах фреймворкоф?

It is not because it is morally obsolete. Once upon a time it was very popular due to the simplicity of development for that time. But time passed, and Delphi has not changed. Yes, you can still distribute components on the form, write down the connection to the base and it will all work. But alas, now for a full-fledged framework (especially cross-platform), this is not enough.

In addition to this, the language itself (Delphi) develops very poorly and clearly does not keep pace with other popular languages.

And another important fact is the horse price tag. In our country, of course, everyone knows how to buy for free, but in the West, not all are so advanced . Now of course there is a free edition of the environment with a bunch of restrictions, but ... Qt creator is free and the Visual Studio Community is almost the same as paid editions.

PS:
Although Delphi is outdated, it’s not yet worth writing it off yet. Easy kanantikov throwing, and easy language will allow you to make a simple application for yourself (well, provided that you know the language).

If you are just at the beginning of the path, then it is better to learn something else.

  • "The last significant change in language was in Delphi 2009" - you are confusing something or are far behind the times. Embarcadera very avktivno poured new features into the language before selling Idere. - Kromster
  • @Kromster I don’t say that they didn’t do anything at all, but they did mostly sugar. Of course, some kind of record helpers are convenient things, but it's sugar. - Vasek
  • everything can be called sugar, so do not mislead people. Here is a good list of features on versions - stackoverflow.com/questions/8460037 - Kromster
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    I ask you either to remove the subjective opinion (paragraph about the alleged lack of new features from 2009) from the answer, or to argue it well. - Kromster

Lazarus + FPC fully supports Win32, GTK1, GTK2, Carbon, Qt widgets. The same Delphi works on Windows and Linux and MacOs, etc. The latest releases are quite decent, workable, and what's not unimportant, easy to use. Chose for new projects and no regrets. Older support on Delphi XE ... If it’s scary, you can write in Delphi compatibility mode (in case of going backwards).