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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Cross Platform Mobile Development
  5. Apache Cordova vs Lua

Apache Cordova vs Lua

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Apache Cordova
Apache Cordova
Stacks686
Followers892
Votes218
GitHub Stars955
Forks345
Lua
Lua
Stacks2.5K
Followers1.0K
Votes180
GitHub Stars1.5K
Forks452

Apache Cordova vs Lua: What are the differences?

Apache Cordova is a popular open-source mobile development framework that allows developers to build mobile applications using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Lua, on the other hand, is a lightweight, high-level programming language designed primarily for embedded systems and game development. Here are the key differences between Apache Cordova and Lua:

1. **Purpose**: Apache Cordova is specifically designed for developing cross-platform mobile applications, making it ideal for creating apps that can run on different operating systems. Conversely, Lua is more focused on scripting and game development, offering a simple and efficient language for these purposes.

2. **Language**: Apache Cordova uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for development, which are widely known and used in web development. Lua, on the other hand, has its own scripting language optimized for performance, making it a preferred choice for game developers and embedded systems.

3. **Performance**: When it comes to performance, Lua is known for its fast execution speed and low memory usage, making it suitable for resource-constrained environments. Apache Cordova, while versatile in terms of platform compatibility, may not provide the same level of performance optimization as Lua in specific scenarios.

4. **Supported Platforms**: Apache Cordova supports a wide range of platforms such as iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, allowing developers to target multiple devices with a single codebase. Lua, on the other hand, is more commonly used in game engines like Corona SDK and mobile apps like Roblox.

5. **Community and Ecosystem**: Apache Cordova has a large and active community of developers, along with a vast ecosystem of plugins and tools to enhance the development experience. Lua, while popular in certain domains, may have a smaller community and ecosystem compared to Apache Cordova.

6. **Learning Curve**: Due to its use of familiar web technologies, developers already proficient in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript may find it easier to start developing with Apache Cordova. Lua, with its specific syntax and paradigms, can have a steeper learning curve for those unfamiliar with the language.

In Summary, Apache Cordova is geared towards cross-platform mobile app development using web technologies, while Lua is a lightweight language primarily utilized for scripting and game development, offering different strengths in terms of performance, platform support, community, and learning curve.

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Advice on Apache Cordova, Lua

Gamerians
Gamerians

May 21, 2020

Needs adviceonLuaLuaPythonPythonJavaJava

I am trying to make Roblox game which requires Lua. I quite don't want to go with Lua just because other tools just might let me do more projects later on. I heard that Python is most similar to Lua, but I am still not sure which tool to use. Java, I think it will help me with many stuff later on for websites, projects, and more!

470k views470k
Comments
Aleksandr
Aleksandr

Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft at Microsoft-365

Dec 23, 2019

Review

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!

119k views119k
Comments
Aleksandr
Aleksandr

Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft at Microsoft-365

Dec 23, 2019

Needs advice

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.

429k views429k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Apache Cordova
Apache Cordova
Lua
Lua

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.

Lua combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, runs by interpreting bytecode for a register-based virtual machine, and has automatic memory management with incremental garbage collection, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping.

Cross-platform (CLI) workflow;Platform-centered workflow;Hundreds of plugins
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
955
GitHub Stars
1.5K
GitHub Forks
345
GitHub Forks
452
Stacks
686
Stacks
2.5K
Followers
892
Followers
1.0K
Votes
218
Votes
180
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 48
    Lots of plugins
  • 35
    JavaScript
  • 26
    Great community
  • 25
    Easy Development
  • 18
    Easy to learn
Cons
  • 2
    No native performance
  • 1
    Hard to install
  • 0
    Hard to install
Pros
  • 41
    Fast learning curve
  • 26
    Efficient memory usage
  • 26
    Very easy to embed in C programs
  • 20
    Open source
  • 19
    Good for game scripting
Cons
  • 4
    Nooby
  • 2
    Not widespread
  • 1
    D
  • 0
    Python

What are some alternatives to Apache Cordova, Lua?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Ionic

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.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

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