# Adobe AIR Reviews **Vendor:** HARMAN International. **Category:** [Mobile Development Platforms](https://www.g2.com/categories/mobile-development-platforms) **Average Rating:** 3.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 44 ## About Adobe AIR Adobe AIR runtime enables developers to package the same code into native applications and games for Windows and Mac OS desktops and mobile devices ## Adobe AIR Reviews ### 1. Solid multiplatform application framework **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Leighton F. | Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 29, 2022 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** Adobe Air makes it simple to deploy rich apps and games to a wide variety of platforms using an identical code base. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Adobe dropped support for the Air SDK some time ago, leaving it up to the open-source community to maintain. This is not bad per se, but it means that the future development of the SDK and its cross-platform support is not completely certain. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** As Adobe Air can be used at no cost, I would recommend trying it in addition to other multi-platform SDKs such as Flutter, although the number of platforms supported by Adobe Air is hard to beat. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Adobe Air allowed my company to develop apps for iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows from a nearly identical codebase, saving an immeasurable amount of resources in development. This also meant testing and deployment speed was increased exponentially, I am baffled as to why it isn't even more popular. ### 2. Adobe AIR Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Silvio B. | Software consultant, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 20, 2019 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** Adobe Air is the way to go for 2D and 3D content development. Trust me when I say that I have been using this software and it is incredibly awesome. Not only is so good for creating the best 3D game versions, it is easier for me to use and developing the prototypes is just enjoyable and easy as 123. Apart from all the above, I found it very easy to integrate some related software with Adobe Bridge. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** I have really not had so many issues with Adobe Air however, due to its great number of features, a new user may get confused but also it is used to running on my device even when I do not know that it is running and that slows my device at times. Another not so big problem is that Adobe Air may be a little confusing for some developers who are not well used to it because of its highly flavored language feature. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** I cannot go for any other prototype developing software other than adobe AIR. I highly recommend this software for any game developer. I tell you you wont regret once you start using it. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** The truth is that Adobe AIR has been so awesome to me. I can easily make a prototype of a game within a very limited period of time. Apart from that, i can easily integrate other related software easily and this has helped me do my work easily. Controlling my own prototype work especially using bitmap has always been a possibility thanks to AIR . ### 3. It is a good program or useful way to get your job done. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Manpreet K. | Customer service representative, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2019 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** What I like the most is that I can type out papers and use it without wifi. Sometimes, I may be travelling with no wifi so it is perfect to complete your tasks and perfect to save data then it is there when the wifi comes back on as well. It is a helpful program to use to save and store documents in like a drive which is the best thing. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** What I dislike is that the program sometimes does not save immediatley and so I might accidentally exit out of the installer and the data I typed out is gone. So, that is one thing I need to be careful of when I use this Adobe. Other than that, it is a simple, easy application to use for all. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use this to type documents and save within the application as storage and it has simple to learn and quickly use for your work. ### 4. Still my favorite! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jason E. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2018 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** With a single code base I build complex applications for iOS, Android, Window and PC. My apps run great at native speed. I have several in all the different app stores. And whats great is, as soon as a new device or app store becomes available, Adobe Air will be quick to create publish options for that too, allowing me to use the same code for past projects to be the first to the new platforms. Also, Airs drawing and vector capabilities can't be beat, for all the different screen resolutions this is a game changer. Actionscript is an awesome object oriented language. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** I wish Adobe would show a little more lovin' **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cross-platform application development. ### 5. AIR is still great for a developer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bobby B. | Programmer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 28, 2018 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** - Targeting iOS, Android, PC and Mac OS X with the same code base, with ANEs to target platform specific functionality as required. There are off the shelf ANEs for almost anything, but you can write your own (or get someone like me to do so) if there's something else you really need. - Choice of IDE. I use FlashDevelop (which is free, and fantastic) and do everything in code, you can go the Adobe route with Animate CC if you want a graphical IDE. - Being able to do nearly everything from a PC, including building for iOS. For example, you can build and debug directly on an iOS device - yes, debugging on an iPhone from a PC. You still need a Mac to build for OS X, and for submitting to the app store. I use Xamarin as well and in comparison the build process for iOS is a long slow joke. - Performance is excellent - you have to write decent code of course! You can run multiple threads, although the implementation is a little awkward at first. - Regular updates of the AIR runtime. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** - As others have said, Adobe's promotion (or lack thereof) of AIR is less than great. I think the (inaccurate) association with Flash is still a problem. Many reviews of cross-platform development tools ignore AIR altogether (while espousing the virtues of less capable tools). - The general lack of recognition of AIR from the developer community, which may in the long run be self-fulfilling. I think many developers are unaware of AIR's capabilities, or think it's Flash, or are put off by the Flash association. For example, some people seem to think that Apple won't accept apps written with AIR which is completely untrue.Having said all that there is still an enthusiastic (but comparatively small) developer community. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** If you're a programmer, use FlashDevelop. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Many cross platform multimedia training tools, health & safety inductions, general business tools, in-house radio streaming, sales presentation tools, interactive artworks, music apps, some small games. As a single developer creating these from a single code base with the least fuss is important. ### 6. While a little buggy, it serves it's purpose. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ron Y. | DJ/KJ, Entertainment, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** It allows me to cross platform my flash ads fairly easily with little to no glitching. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** I dislike the fact that at times there are hiccups in the software that casue certain aspects to freeze up while it's running in the background. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm using it to produce cross platform ads. It seems to be fairly reliable for the most part. ### 7. Adobe AIR - fast cross platform app and game development **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Marcus S. | Freelance AIR for iOS & Android / HTML5 / After Effects / Developer / Producer, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** AIR is a really quick way to build apps (especially games - using the Starling Framework in particular) that work across different devices with minimal additional code for the adaption. Once the initial version (say iOS) is built the app can normally be adapted easily for Android in less than a day. Desktop apps for Mac and PC are just as easy to produce too. You can use different feature requirement ANEs (Air Native Extension) to easily access native feature on mobile devices using (usually) simple APIs. There is a very helpful and friendly community too. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** The way Adobe took the foot of the gas when the whole 'Flash-gate' happened. It was up to the AIR community (particularly all the team at Starling Framework who really kept the wheels moving) to keep pushing it forward. Now Adobe has relaunched Animate CC there has been much more focus on the software and I think Adobe is now separating AIR as a stand alone product from the perceived Flash association. Hopefully they will be releasing more ANE's. We currently have to pay other ANE developers to use many of the good ones, (but in fairness the costs are comparatively minimal to buy). I also would like to see support for Windows Mobile. If they could get this box ticked it would be a no-brainer for clients when they need rapid cross platform development for a game or app. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Getting an app up and running even if its just for prototyping is very quick Cross platforming the app is easily done with minimal code. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have used AIR for a number of different purposes including Games (distributed via iTunes, Google Play, Amazon app store and private corporate apps for employee use only), Augmented Reality Apps, Desktop apps (Mac and PC) for uses such as touch screen, games / info centres on corporate stands at trade shows ### 8. Fit all my needs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bui S. | CEO and Co-Founder, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 18, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** AS3 is better than JS with strong typing, AMF is better than JSON in my case **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Adobe does not pay enough attention to support. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm developing an enterprise software system use cross-platform ### 9. Adobe air review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tim P. | Children's Ministry Director, Religious Institutions, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 21, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** How it allows for a lot of my different apps to run smoothly **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Nothing really it updates smoothly and is very diverse **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Apps with adobe air we have access to alot ### 10. Fast way to generate an app for the desktop **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Karen P. | Dirección Creativa, Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 02, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** The usability and the idea to don't need to go open the software every time. The size of the software, and the interfase design. Mostly is a quick solution to any mobile and game development without having to spend so much time signing in or just leave it running while you are doing other work. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Maybe the excessive use of adobe related software for developers. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Search for related software and compared to software made with Adobe Air. Check the time lapse it took to switch to the Adobe Air software. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Specific solution to any problem without bothering other applications and can be used aside. Using mostly for desktop activities with an easygoing software solution. ### 11. Create for mobile and desktop in a great development environment **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kevin G. | Développeur créatif, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** - the possibility of create high-performance content and optimize content - the ergonomy of the development environment and the usability of the engine - the great community - the ability to call native functionalities using AIR native extensions (ANE) - the facility of publish and debug for cross-platform - the solidity of the language - the frequency of the updates **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** - have more official and free ANE - find the good ANE is not always easy - more official API for the different web services - no windows phone support (for now) **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Adobe Air is a top value solution if you don't want to do native app and the quickest way to have quality cross platform mobile application. The development environment is easy to setup and good to use. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** I make a mobile application for children for android and ios, the benefits are : - to use large spritesheet and animation easily and optimize the size - to publish and debug for cross-platform in one click (on mac and with flash builder) - have a large choices of librairies for my needs : starling for the rendering, feathers for UI, dragonbones for animations, nape for physics etc... ### 12. Excellent cross platform runtime for mobile and desktop apps **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 14, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** Saving time and cost because Adobe AIR works on android, iOS, Windows and Mac OS X. It is really cost effective to develop apps that is needed to be cross platform in a short period of time since most of the code are reusable and it helps me to focus more on the user interface of the app instead of spending hours trying to tediously maintain different code base. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Performance can some how be an issue depending on how you develop the app. For example most of the things I have are built with Flex or some simple actionscript UI libraries where they are not using Stage3D api. It is ok because they are more business related application, however performance on this part should be more optimized even without fancy animations. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** It is a awesome tool to build cross platform application that actually works without great hassle. You should try it. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am developing cross platform trading tools for stock markets, forex and commodities where it is important that data is streamed seamlessly and UX should be smooth and responsive for users to get notified on strategies they have set. Using Adobe Air with Flex framework save me tremendous hours in developing the core front end application where I can focus more on algorithm and business logic which is more important to my business. Charts are especially useful as they are all ready made while we just have to customise a bit to display reports and data calculated with our algo. It is very useful that the app I develop can be used across different platform with a little changes in the code. Most importantly it is only one code base which i like a lot. Somehow it will be great if UI build without Stage3d can be faster and more responsive since charts are used a lot in trading apps. ### 13. Just another developer **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** haseeb a. | Associate Professor, Animation, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** i used this toolset on almost 5 projects in my career and surely it was best time, where i learned decent development. actually at that time, there were less comparable choices. Still i beleive there are many, which provide that many features with few clicks. i mean, simple graphics, animations, transitions, sounds without being worried with small file sizes etc. more, i wasn't worried that it will work on mac or windows. super cool stuff was, application deployed was able to upgrade it self, as i put new build on server. i mean, that was awesome. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** its really hard to find dislikings in a toolset which was precise in its thought and does exactly that. my choices primarily was due to FILE IO and i get that. from what i remember, using sockets was a bit tricky but it was my inability to understand that, other wise, it was good. adding upgradable features was fun. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** if you have to create small desktop app, nothing comes closer in terms of all cool features, ease of use to integrate beautiful graphics etc due to integration with swf / swc files. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** at that time, we used to develop simple desktop applications for our clients, weather they connect to internet or work locally. typically, making a mini photoshop like application where use can load image and tweak it with brushes, it wasn't possible for small agency like us in any other toolset. creating a mini dropbox like app, where our clients can download stuff. too many examples to realize ### 14. A great product that was greatly forgotten by Adobe, but there's still hope for it. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pablo V. | CEO - Founder, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** AS/3, the language is very easy to learn and one can take it to the extremes, and even touch C code through the proper interfaces. Easy to use, multiplatform, fast IDE. Great for the web, PC and modern (fast) smartphones. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** I don't like the fact that Adobe isn't supporting its own product as it should. Since a competitor stated that it was slow, AIR's public perception trembled and Adobe wasn't able to face it properly affecting the developers community (giving hints of a clear future path and encouraging our clients to adopt it (install the runtime). So, yes, it is a terrific product, with a marketing problem, something that Adobe can fix only if they decide to. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** If you client doesn't know about mad marketing decisions, use it. It is easy and very powerful. Tasks that takes months for me were done in weeks thanks to AIR. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Multiplatform: Real-time sound generation and mixing, databases, animations, games... too many too mention, but you can get an idea of how versatile this platform is. ### 15. Great promise, but wrong approach at a wrong time **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Philip S. | Co-Founder & CEO, E-Learning, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 03, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** The expience developing with Adobe AIR was great, and ActionScript is one of the best languages out there. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** The delivery experience for the end customer was dreadful and what killed the platform. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Building a cross platform application without investing in several developers/frameworks. ### 16. Need it to run programs, but it takes up minimal processing **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jennifer B. | Owner, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 22, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** You have to have it to run a lot of programs since developers package the same code into apps. I like that it doesn't eat up a lot of my computer's processing in order to run it and the applications that need it. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Nothing really. It's a necessity to be able to use certain things. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** You need it as a user to run certain programs so you should have it. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** For me I need it to run time tracking software, cinematics and graphics software, other adobe apps, and more. ### 17. Adobe Air for Mobile Application **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Media Production | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** One runtime for different platforms: Android and iOS, shorten development time and resources. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Occasional runtime incompatibility across different platform versions. Components for Mobile Apps development are not up-to-date, e.g. sliding menu is not available like native platforms do. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Definitely a good choice if time and resouces are a concern in development. Simply the best third party runtime that is available for mobile phones at the moment. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Shorten development time and resources. ### 18. Cross-platform mobile game development **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kawika H. | Game Developer, Music, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** I can use the same codebase to develop apps simultaneously for Google Play and the Apple App Store. I can get good gaming performance by utilizing the GPU on mobile devices. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Sometimes it takes Adobe longer than I would like to fix bugs with the platform, but they work as fast as they can. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Be prepared to use Native Extensions for certain mobile hardware features. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** No need to develop separate game apps for both iOS and Android. ### 19. No so cross-platform as we want **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Max R. | Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 08, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** ActionScript 3.0 is great language with all needed capabilities for fast creating applications. Also starting Adobe AIR 3.0 there is amazing possibility to extend AIR features through writing custom Native Extensions for AIR. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** The most annoying thing is that Adobe doesn't hurry to fix many bugs that AIR has. Also AIR no longer so cross-platform as we want, there is no possibility to deploy AIR application for Windows Mobile. Mobile versions still have not real echo-cancellation, whereas desktop versions have. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Adobe AIR is still good platform for creating games, but I don't recommend it for application development. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were able successfully built large mobile application using Adobe AIR for both iOS and Android platforms. ### 20. Just terrible. **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** The promise of deploying one application package for multiple platforms. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** The implementation of AIR is clunky, rather than getting a great looking, usable app to our customers we ended up with clunky software that was as terrible to use as it was to maintain. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Just don't. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were attempting to deploy rich application to both desktop machines (Mac and Windows) while also deploying a connected version to the web. The deployment was successful, but the sub-par user experience would prevent me from ever creating another product with AIR. ### 21. make air app for android , ios , desktop **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Program Development | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 08, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** fast make project multiplatform easy to use flash expert can make mobile app , desktop app perfect tools good ducument game fast develope very good tools to developers **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** some bug and limition in compile for ios platform need more update and debug **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** include native extension inside air as default and make direct native code inside air app **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** make a pro application and game for all platform fast , clean , lite with one core of code and one delegete to data transfer and connection. ### 22. cross-platform App built with AIR. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Contra L. | Technical Director, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** Cross-platform; Actionscript is simple but powerful. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Hard to develop some native extended features; Hard to debug ANE; Only a few third party SDKs support actionscript. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Only suit for some game products. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** The first main version of the App is built with AIR. Prototype quickly. ### 23. Great across many platforms. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stephanie O. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 13, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** This works across many platforms like Windows, android, iOS, etc. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** Support discontinued for linux as of version 2.6 in 2011. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** Definitely get Adobe AIR **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mobile application development. ### 24. Mosty created for game. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 08, 2016 **What do you like best about Adobe AIR?** Actionscript 3. Drawing API. Stage3D. Easy to develop. Cross platform. **What do you dislike about Adobe AIR?** No official Adobe support. No flex update. **Recommendations to others considering Adobe AIR:** If you want to make 3D game, use Unity. For 2D game, Quick and Easy 2D game, use Adobe AIR. Especially if you don't have C++ knowledge. **What problems is Adobe AIR solving and how is that benefiting you?** Gaming. Can build to Android & iOS with one codebase. Stage3D is fast. ## Adobe AIR Discussions - [What is Adobe AIR used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-adobe-air-used-for) - [View Adobe AIR pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/adobe-air/reviews?filters%5Bcompany_segment%5D%5B%5D=179§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-15+11%3A17%3A18+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=398b625c-cf94-4fa4-bb03-88d880d4d54b&secure%5Btoken%5D=f6627d5315d1bdb5032375a613cb154aa278fa73282a1c93b681dc23ace1288d&format=llm_user) ## Adobe AIR Features **Functionality** - Ease of Use - File Management - Multi-Language Support - Customization - Straight-Out-the-Box Functionality - Help Guides - Patching & Updates **Agentic AI - Mobile Development Platforms** - Adaptive Learning - Natural Language Interaction - Proactive Assistance ## Top Adobe AIR Alternatives - [.NET](https://www.g2.com/products/net-2023-06-12/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (148 reviews) - [Android Studio](https://www.g2.com/products/android-studio/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (617 reviews) - [Xcode](https://www.g2.com/products/xcode/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (994 reviews)