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Apache Cordova

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Advice on Apache Cordova, Flutter, and Pepperoni
Needs advice
on
Apache CordovaApache Cordova
and
Vue NativeVue Native

Heya, I'm very new on here! And I hope I can get advice on this matter :

We are working on a new app. The web version is on Sails.js (V1)/node.js/vue.js. Started with the Web App default settings (including login and payments, which we are using use). We started with a web version to give access to the customer to start creating the data while building the mobile version. (iOS and Android)

I heard of Apache Cordova, that using the same JavaScript/css could be used to not re-code the front-end of the app for iPhones and Androids. I've been told that it is end-of-life now (? - I couldn't find this info myself).

I saw that Vue Native might be an alternative and would only need a few adjustments from our web version as we are using Vue.js for the frontend.

I know next to nothing on this, so I would really appreciate it if you guys could point me to possible solutions you've used and why instead of searching through all the existing solutions. (I'm very open to know if there are alternatives to those two too !!)

We will need to be using the GPS functions of the mobiles, which is a big part of the app.

Thank you!

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Replies (1)
ahmed Tirhmert
Fullstack Web Developer · | 3 upvotes · 71.9K views

i don't have any experience with the vue native what so ever but i think Quasar and Ionic are the best options for an HTML/CSS/JS based mobile app ionic has full support of vue and quasar is built on vue you may have to change some configurations in your project files

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espresso_coder
software engineer at AWS · | 6 upvotes · 101.4K views

I am building an app that would need at least two external APIs: a map and a payment service. I am currently building in Flutter, but I am having trouble integrating one of the external APIs with the app. I wonder (because I am still at the beginning) if I should switch to React Native or build native iOS and Android apps separately. Any advice would be appreciated!

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Replies (3)
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Choosing between ios/android and Flutter is not simple. Neither is a one-size-fit-all solution. It would be impossible to suggest one or the other without first analysing particular project’s requirements.

Choosing cross-platform development (Flutter) offers a number of advantages – lower cost, faster time to market, etc…, and if applied to the right type of project, will result in high-quality, marketable mobile product. In my opinion, stick with flutter and try to resolve those problems. Here are some useful links,

Map: *https://pub.dev/packages/mapbox_gl *https://www.raywenderlich.com/4466319-google-maps-for-flutter-tutorial-getting-started

Payment Service: *https://developer.squareup.com/docs *https://github.com/square/in-app-payments-flutter-plugin *https://pub.dev/packages/stripe_sdk

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Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

It's a bit late but I suggest staying on Flutter anyway. Though you might face troubles with APIs integration, overall development experience is better on Flutter, so you save some time & power on the project in general. Dunno if it's of any use to you, but as a prove I attach one of many Flutter vs RN comparison articles (you can find any other similar yourself on the web though), hope it helps you make a decision

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Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

can you discuss in more detail why cant you integrate that API?

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Nikhilesh Goyal
Senior Embedded Engineer at GreyOrange · | 5 upvotes · 493.9K views
Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutterReact NativeReact Native
and
UnityUnity

Hi Friends, I am new to #MobileAppDevelopment and I need to make a #CrossPlatformMobileApp. I want guidance regarding which tools should I use to build a mobile app. Main requirements: integrate Unity game engine and provide a platform for social chats.

Past experience - C++ and Python

I have tagged Flutter and React Native but if anything better than both please suggest them.

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Replies (3)
Sahil Singh
Product Manager at AutoVRse · | 10 upvotes · 449.4K views
Recommends
on
UnityUnity

Hey, If you are using Unity you are going to have to do the end to end development on Unity, you can directly build for android and iOS on Unity. I dont see how Flutter or React Native fit into this equation. Unity is a standalone engine. As for Social Chats, you could use Firebase or your own API and integrate that in Unity in C#

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Recommends
on
UnityUnity

I agree with Sahil. If Unity is a requirement, best way is to use just that to create your app.

If you really want, it should be possible to use Flutter and Unity together. Using Flutter Unity Widget. Although I wouldn't recommend it just yet. It's too early days.

If you do end up using it, I would be very interested in reading about your experiences.

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Mathieu Grenier
Recommends
on
UnityUnity

You can start by small steps with Flutter and after Unity. Flutter = best choice to build a small cross-platform mobile app. With or no flutter, use directly Unity. Y'll have complete control but it's harder for new mobile developers. Keep in mind, the requirement is Unity!

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Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutter
and
React NativeReact Native

Hi, I'm a web dev and am using Electron for a desktop app. Now I have to develop a mobile app with the following features:

  • Posting/uploading files by users, private messaging between users, download files, moderation of the uploads, push notification of new posts.
  • Mods can ban users and delete files.
  • Share buttons from the library folder of the user phone.
  • When a user uploads a photo, a pencil tool for deleting staff on the pic.

Which tool is better for such a project?

Thanks in advance

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Replies (2)
Lee Dydo
Technology Development Manager at Outform · | 5 upvotes · 398K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Given your experience in electron I think the shortest hop is going to be React Native. Especially since half of the requirements are server-side. Google is doing a pretty great job bringing up Flutter and the tooling is pretty great. For me however, dart seemed like quicksand and not everything is in its final home. React Native is mature, and considering my cursory analysis of your experience and the low complexity of this project, you've got quite a lot of room to grow into Javascript Land. Ultimately, my recommendation is always "play with both, see what you like, and get to know the documentation and the community." Keep your head on a swivel and set aside time to peek greener pastures, but spend most of your time delving deeply into what you're already doing.

But yeah, go with React Native first, get bored of it, learn what the shortcomings are through experience and then see if something else is really more attractive or just a new shiny.

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Varun Sharma
CTO at Nugen Computer & I.T. Services · | 5 upvotes · 398K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Well, I will personally recommend to go for React Native as I have worked in both of them. React native has big community and it is easy to opt as compared to Flutter. There no doubt about the fact that Flutter is a great framework for developing both Android/IOS apps. However, you should have some experience to go for the same. Both will require prior knowledge as for React Native you have to go through Javascript first with which you are already familiar and for Flutter you need to go through Dart. So being familiar with Javascript you should go for React Native. You can go expo which has lot of inbuilt functionalities for the React Native developers.

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Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutterIonicIonic
and
React NativeReact Native

Hi, we are an early startup (with an iPOC prototype) but need to get started on our MVP, and our tech developers in India recommended a hybrid, and they use Ionic, then we spoke with a software company in the US and he recommended Flutter or React Native. Any advice or input for us on the differences between these? Our app will need Bluetooth GPS for "near me" and social media sharing reviews capability, and also link on the backend with businesses. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

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Replies (6)
Ahmad Khan
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

I would never recommend you to go with Ionic, Because of the User experience it provides is subpar. Flutter is most promising, Can be easily used to develop great user experience in no time. React native is also good, but it's phasing out in my opinion, while Ionic has already phased out. Flutter also provides great developer experience, resulting in fast and productive developers. I would have to press hard to think of a CON about flutter when recommending it for your needs.

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Dario Alves
Arquiteto de Software at Senior sistemas · | 2 upvotes · 518.2K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Maturity, Community, Facility, Libs React Native is the principal platform of mobile cross-platform development today, Flutter is it's a promise.

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Nicolas Kovacs
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Even if React Native is older (I didn't say mature) you should go for Flutter, It's works really well and the developer experience is great (auto-completion, plugin etc). I spent years with React Native and now I am using Flutter and I don't regret It. Even if you have to learn a new language, It's pretty simple even more If you know some OOP, Java and Javascript ES6 syntax in some case. One other advantage is the facility to design app in Flutter, you have widgets for everything and you can adapt any design made by your designer. For example you can't make a simple custom box shadow with React-Native ...

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Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Flutter is built on DART which is written in GO. GO compiles to binary. Hence is faster than any java based framework. It provides superior performance and has a simplified UI process for designing apps.

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Recommends
on
IonicIonic
at

I don‘t have practical experience with flutter but between ionic and react native I‘d say both a perfectly viable options and we have used both for a number of production apps. We normally go with ionic on capacitor because we build a lot of pwa/web apps so we can use the same code for all. We don‘t use much of ionic elements, we do most styles on our own.

The comments that the user experience is bad I cannot agree with. A well designed and developed ionic apo can hardly be distinguished from a native app. But obviously that depends also on the usecase and type of app.

I hope this helps

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Kevin Lücke
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

It depends also on your team skills. Flutter is fast to learn, fast to develop with and the performance is much better in comparison to React. If your team is already highly skilled in React Native it could be the better option - if not Flutter is my 100% recommendation. We rapidly prototype and deliver MVPs with Flutter since two years.

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Alexis Poveda
Needs advice
on
ElectronElectronFlutterFlutter
and
IonicIonic

Hi! I have to develop a software solution for a youth church group, for my graduation project. In the first meeting that I have with the coordinators, they did not have a clear idea of what they want. The biggest problem they have is the attendance control, they do it manually and that causes errors.

I was thinking of developing an Android app in Android Studio because that is the tool I master, but a friend told me that I consider using a tool that builds for iOS, Android and web. I have like 6 months. I own a MacBookAir but I do not know Swift (for iOS). I am familiar with MySQL, PHP, Apache, JSP,HTML,CSS.

Summary: What tool can I use that is easy to learn and easy to scale?

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Replies (5)
Recommends
on
IonicIonic

I think you should chose between Flutter and Ionic. With those two options, the main question is about graphs and performance. Are they really important for your application? If the answer is yes, your tool is Flutter but, if the answer is that you need an easy tool to create an app with some basic components I would choose Ionic. You have a library with lots of components that you can use and they have native UI by default (for Android and iOS).

You will find more support if you use Ionic with Angular as frontend framework (you have the option to use Vue or React but this is a new feature for Ionic and I think there are more difficult to learn than Angular).

You can develop and debug the majority of features on PC (I don't know if that is possible with Flutter). And when you will finish the app, create iOS and Android versions is simple.

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Recommends
on
IonicIonic

It's probably not relevant anymore, but I think Ionic with Angular as the frontend is the right choice. For IDE I would choose Visual Studio Code. You can just create a basic web application with responsive design, which is already included if you are going to use Ionic components with Material Design to create your app. You don't need to know Swift, you don't even have to create mobile apps, just create a responsive (Ionic already is) web app, or PWA. Upon browsing your website from a mobile device for example using google chrome, you will be prompted to create a shortcut of the website in your mobile phone. After you do this, there will be an icon in your phone that looks like an icon to launch an app, it will launch your website in full screen mode - for the user's perspective it will look like he is using a native app. Access https://ionicframework.com/docs/angular/pwa from your android chrome browser, go to tab options (3 vertical dots), click on Add to Home screen. When you launch the website from the shortcut, you'll see that it behaves and looks like a native app.

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Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Flutter is easy to use and easy to understand. Once you have completed the android platform, you can easily build it to ios, Web or desktop on a single code base.

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Carlos Esteban Lopez Jaramillo
Recommends
on
IonicIonic
  1. Electron is for desktop apps, so not useful for you.
  2. Flutter has better performance, but Ionic is decent as well, I would use Ionic unless you're making a game or graphic-intensive app.
  3. Ionic is more flexible since you have the whole NPM ecosystem available, while flutter is more recent, thus libraries for it are less in quantity and battle-tested than the ones in NPM.
  4. Ionic 4 introduced CSS variables, which improved immensely the theming process for the app, which was the hardest issue Ionic development had.
  5. Ionic has extended to many frameworks so it's compatible with Angular and React frameworks, meaning more flexibility, personally I would recommend Ionic with Angular over React since it's more suited to enterprise-level apps.
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Alejandro Ulate Fallas
Mobile Developer at Build SRL · | 2 upvotes · 317.2K views
Recommends
on
IonicIonic

Hi there. So Electron embeds everything in a webview, which means that what you would have to develop would be a Node project most probably. Ionic does the same (kindof but won't bore you with specifics) but it does it much more efficiently. Usually you do Ionic apps with JS frameworks like Angular or React (this one recently added). Flutter on the other hand does native apps, it does it really good but it's support for Web is in beta and it's relatively simple to setup if you already know the SDK and the environment.

My recommendation would be that you do your app using Angular/Ionic if you reaaally need the multi-platform environment and there's different reasons in this case:

  • Since it's a graduation project you need it to be as simple as it can be and adding a new technology adds to the learning curve.
  • Flutter is great if you have different complex UI or if you have specific performance needs that require native support and in your case it does not seem like you need that.
  • Flutter is also an incredibly powerful tool but it's learning curve might be tricky if you have not developed native apps before so I wouldn't recommend you start off like this if you have time sensitive projects like a graduation project. It does have great docs and an awesome community but I'd suggest you stick as close to what you know as you can.
  • Ionic/Angular uses Typescript (a type javascript wrapper) and Angular (JS framework) so you will have to learn a little bit but if you already know HTML, CSS and Javascript you won't have that much of a hard time. Also there's quite a lot in terms of documentation and tooling already tested around this combination.
  • Ionic/Angular has a really good CLI that helps you stick to the architecture they recommend so you wouldn't have to worry about it that much.
  • Ionic/Angular helps you test either locally in the web browser as well as your devices which is in the end what you want if you are looking for a multi-platform system. Flutter also does this but is not quite in a stable state (yet!).

Anyway, in the end, if you go for the multi-platform suggestion I think, because of time you would be better off with Ionic. If you decide that you don't need that as of right now (which is fine as well) you can start with just the Android app and plan on the different things you might eventually need like a website or other different stuff. Cheers!

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Decisions about Apache Cordova, Flutter, and Pepperoni
Julie Quintero
Machine learning/ software engineer · | 4 upvotes · 105.5K views

We will use Flutter for our athlete-facing mobile app. Flutter is a cross-platform app development framework, which boasts native performance and allows for creating beautiful, fluid user interfaces.

React Native may sound like a more appropriate option given our choice of frontend technologies, but we foresee little to no feature overlap in the web dashboard and mobile app. Ease of use, performance, good user experiences are key to encouraging athletes to use our app, something which React Native makes difficult, and is where Flutter excels.

We will use the test and flutter_test packages to test our Flutter app

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Christopher Chow
Software Developer at University of Toronto · | 4 upvotes · 105.5K views

We chose Flutter since we are developing a mobile application that needs to be performant (to handle displaying large amounts of data and video uploading) and would cover both Android and iOS systems. Since we want the app to be cross-platform, two frameworks comes in to mind: Flutter and React Native. As shown below, Flutter's performance and out-of-the-box support impressed us to pick it as our framework for our mobile app.

React Native has been a dominant force in cross-platform app development since its launch by Facebook. The ability to write React-like code and have it compile to both iOS and Android makes developing mobile apps much easier. However, the overhead done to bridge Javascript code into native code means React Native apps might not be as performant. Moreover, React Native, much like React, is an unopinionated framework that covers minimal functionality out-of-the-box. This means that most functionalities would have to be relied on third-party libraries or developers would have to write their own native code.

Flutter, on the other hand, is a much newer framework developed by Google. While Flutter uses Dart, a relatively new language compared to JS, syntax-wise it is similar enough to that a JS developer should be able to pick it up in no time. The Flutter engine also compiles directly into native code, making it more performant when compared with React Native. Flutter is also an opinionated framework, with a much large stack of Widgets to choose from out-of-the-box. The Widgets are also designed according to Material design principles, making styling easier.

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Pierre Canthelou
Responsable app mobile at Le Point · | 5 upvotes · 126.4K views

I've made 6 professional/business applications with React Native before choosing Flutter/Dart for the new version of WinMinuteConso (historical in Ionic...). Multi Platform is far more stable, Dart is far more powerful, the whole process is really better... It is just hard to find the proper software architecture...

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Thuan Nguyen
FE Lead at SOLID ENGINEER · | 5 upvotes · 643.6K views
  • Javascripts is the most populated language in the world.
  • Easy to learn & deployed production
  • Fast development
  • Strong community
  • Completed Documents
  • Native performance with lower RAM used.
  • Easy to handle native issues by using native code like Java / Objective C
  • Powered by Facebook.
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awesomebanana2018
Chose
FlutterFlutter
over
IonicIonic

While with Ionic it is possible to make mobile applications with only web technologies, Flutter is more performant and is easy to use if you are willing to learn Dart, which is a fun language. Plus, it has awesome documentation and, while its ecosystem isn't near as big as JavaScript's is, it has a good package manager called Pub and its packages are generally high quality.

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Nick Skriabin

We built the first version of our app with RN and it turned out a mess in a while. A lot of bugs along with poor performance out of the box for a fairly large app. Many things, that native platform has, cannot be done with existing solutions for RN. For instance, large titles on iOS are not fully implemented in any of existing navigations libraries. Also there's painfully slow JSON bridge and many other small, yet annoying things. On the other hand Flutter became a really powerful and easy-to-use tool. A bit of a learning curve, of course, because of Dart, but it worth learning. Flutter offers TONS of built-in features, no JSON-bridge, AOT compilation for iOS.

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Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 2 upvotes · 412.4K views

I've done some Hybrid Mobile apps with both technologies Apache Cordova and React Native and described my experience in my blog.

In a few words, I would suggest to use each technology in accordance what what is your current code base and what do you want to achieve.

React Native is a great option if you need that extra edge in performance with multi-threading and native UI rendering. Or you already have a web app based on React which you want to port to mobile.

On the other hand, if you have an existing web application code and you want to reuse some or all, including the ability to use web third-party libraries, then Cordova is the best option.

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Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 2 upvotes · 113.3K views
What is Proguard?

ProGuard is the most popular optimizer for Java bytecode. It makes your Java and Android applications up to 90% smaller and up to 20% faster. ProGuard also provides minimal protection against reverse engineering by obfuscating the names of classes, fields and methods.

How to use it in Cordova app?

I didn't find any plugins for it. So I've implemented it by myself and shared it on GitHub.

Feel free to use!

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Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
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Pros of Apache Cordova
Pros of Flutter
Pros of Pepperoni
  • 48
    Lots of plugins
  • 35
    JavaScript
  • 26
    Great community
  • 25
    Easy Development
  • 18
    Easy to learn
  • 15
    Cross platform
  • 7
    Open Source
  • 6
    Easy, fast, not buggy in my experience with my code
  • 6
    Lots of descendants; PhoneGap, Ionic, Intel XDA etc
  • 4
    Can use CSS3
  • 4
    Rich HTML 5
  • 4
    Easy debugging
  • 3
    HTML, CSS and JS
  • 3
    Fast and hot reload
  • 3
    Rich css ui
  • 3
    Use what you code in your browser
  • 2
    Need a light system
  • 2
    Native Web Technologies
  • 2
    Without extra tooling needed
  • 2
    One code base everywhere
  • 143
    Hot Reload
  • 123
    Cross platform
  • 105
    Performance
  • 89
    Backed by Google
  • 73
    Compiled into Native Code
  • 61
    Fast Development
  • 58
    Open Source
  • 53
    Fast Prototyping
  • 49
    Single Codebase
  • 48
    Expressive and Flexible UI
  • 36
    Reactive Programming
  • 34
    Material Design
  • 30
    Dart
  • 29
    Widget-based
  • 26
    Target to Fuchsia
  • 20
    IOS + Android
  • 17
    Easy to learn
  • 16
    Great CLI Support
  • 14
    You can use it as mobile, web, Server development
  • 14
    Tooling
  • 13
    Debugging quickly
  • 13
    Have built-in Material theme
  • 12
    Target to Android
  • 12
    Good docs & sample code
  • 12
    Community
  • 11
    Support by multiple IDE: Android Studio, VS Code, XCode
  • 10
    Written by Dart, which is easy to read code
  • 10
    Easy Testing Support
  • 9
    Target to iOS
  • 9
    Real platform free framework of the future
  • 9
    Have built-in Cupertino theme
  • 8
    Easy to Widget Test
  • 8
    Easy to Unit Test
  • 1
    Large Community
  • 2
    Clone and run - simple, but it builds

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Apache Cordova
Cons of Flutter
Cons of Pepperoni
  • 2
    No native performance
  • 1
    Hard to install
  • 0
    Hard to install
  • 29
    Need to learn Dart
  • 11
    Lack of community support
  • 10
    No 3D Graphics Engine Support
  • 8
    Graphics programming
  • 6
    Lack of friendly documentation
  • 2
    Lack of promotion
  • 1
    Https://iphtechnologies.com/difference-between-flutter
    Be the first to leave a con

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is Apache Cordova?

    Apache Cordova is a set of device APIs that allow a mobile app developer to access native device function such as the camera or accelerometer from JavaScript. Combined with a UI framework such as jQuery Mobile or Dojo Mobile or Sencha Touch, this allows a smartphone app to be developed with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

    What is Flutter?

    Flutter is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android.

    What is Pepperoni?

    This Starter Kit reflects the best practices of React Native development we have discovered while building real-world applications for our customers. It is opinionated about tooling, patterns and development practices. It might not be a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone, but feel free to customize it for your needs, or just take inspiration from it.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use Apache Cordova?
    What companies use Flutter?
    What companies use Pepperoni?
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      What tools integrate with Apache Cordova?
      What tools integrate with Flutter?
      What tools integrate with Pepperoni?

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      What are some alternatives to Apache Cordova, Flutter, and Pepperoni?
      Xamarin
      Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
      PhoneGap
      PhoneGap is a web platform that exposes native mobile device apis and data to JavaScript. PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova. PhoneGap allows you to use standard web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development, avoiding each mobile platforms' native development language. Applications execute within wrappers targeted to each platform, and rely on standards-compliant API bindings to access each device's sensors, data, and network status.
      React Native
      React Native enables you to build world-class application experiences on native platforms using a consistent developer experience based on JavaScript and React. The focus of React Native is on developer efficiency across all the platforms you care about - learn once, write anywhere. Facebook uses React Native in multiple production apps and will continue investing in React Native.
      Electron
      With Electron, creating a desktop application for your company or idea is easy. Initially developed for GitHub's Atom editor, Electron has since been used to create applications by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, and Docker. The Electron framework lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on io.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor.
      Ionic
      Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript.
      See all alternatives