Top 5 AR SDKs For Building Augmented Reality Mobile Apps​ | ARPost

Augmented reality is among the biggest trends these days, and you may hardly meet anyone who is not familiar with it. Although most people still consider AR as an entertainment technology, we can see its practical implementations in various industries like e-commerce, healthcare, architecture, training, and many others.

Organizations have already started using AR to develop their product portfolios, interactive advertising campaigns, and offer real-time information to their consumers.

As per Statista research, the global AR, VR, and MR market already surpassed $27 billion in 2021, and it is going to rise exponentially hereafter.

AR-aided apps can transform industries ranging from e-commerce and tourism to training and education.

If you are interested to board the AR bandwagon, then this is the right time to build AR applications.

An AR software development kit or AR SDK is the key to AR app development. In this blog, we will cover some highly popular software development tools used for AR app development.

Criteria For Selecting the Best AR SDK

We have a plethora of AR app development tools available in the market. You should consider the following parameters before choosing a suitable tool for your AR app development.

Top 5 Tools for Developing AR Mobile Apps

Apple ARKit

In June 2017, Apple launched its own AR development kit, ARKit, while launching iOS11. ARKit enables developers to build AR experiences using the front or rear camera of their iOS device.

Prominent Features:

Supported Platforms: iOS 11 or newer

ARCore is developed and launched by Google. It supports AR app development for both iOS and Android platforms.

It uses innovative technologies such as lighting estimation, motion tracking, and environmental understanding to offer an exceptional AR experience to the end-user.

Prominent Features:

Supported Platforms: iOS 11 or newer, Android 7.0 or newer, Unity for iOS and Android, and Unreal Engine.

Pricing: Free

Wikitude is among the most popular SDKs for developing cross-platform AR experiences. It is used to build AR apps and experiences for iOS, Android, Windows, and AR glasses.

Prominent Features:

Supported Platforms: iOS, Android, and Windows.

Pricing: Free trial, Pro 3D (one-time payment not including SDK updates €2,490, yearly subscription including SDK updates €2,990), Cloud (yearly subscription €4,490), Enterprise package (custom, contact for info).

Vuforia 

Vuforia is one of the most popular SDKs available in the market for building AR apps. It scores way above its competitors due to its multiple platform support capability.

Prominent Features

Supported Platforms: Android, iOS, Unity, and Universal Windows Platform

Pricing: Basic plan (free with limited features), Premium plan and Cloud Plus (contact for info), Cloud add-on ($99 per month).

MAXST is another popular AR development toolkit. It comes with 2 SDKs, MAXST AR SDK 2D for image tracking, MAXST AR SDK 3D to track the environment.

Prominent Features:

Supported platforms: iOS, Android, and Unity.

Pricing: Free version with limited features, Pro Version (one-time fee $699, monthly subscription $49.9/month),  Enterprise version (contact for info).

Augmented reality has opened numerous avenues to enhance businesses’ service offerings and improve the customer experience exponentially. This is the right time to capitalize on the abilities of AR development tools to build a perfect AR application for your business.

About the Guest Author(s)

Gaurav Sharma

Gaurav Sharma is a Digital Marketing Strategist at Arka Softwares, a leading mobile app development company. He has 4 years of experience in the Information Technology industry and AR technology. He spends his time reading about new trends in app development.