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

Apache Cordova vs OpenFL

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Apache Cordova
Apache Cordova
Stacks686
Followers892
Votes218
GitHub Stars955
Forks345
OpenFL
OpenFL
Stacks11
Followers15
Votes0
GitHub Stars2.1K
Forks475

Apache Cordova vs OpenFL: What are the differences?

Developers describe Apache Cordova as "Platform for building native mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript". 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. On the other hand, OpenFL is detailed as "*Build games and applications for almost every platform imaginable *". It enables creative expression for the desktop, mobile and web. Enterprise applications and best-selling games are made with it, publishing native, Flash and HTML5 applications using one seamless toolset.

Apache Cordova belongs to "Cross-Platform Mobile Development" category of the tech stack, while OpenFL can be primarily classified under "Cross-Platform Desktop Development".

Some of the features offered by Apache Cordova are:

  • Cross-platform (CLI) workflow
  • Platform-centered workflow
  • Hundreds of plugins

On the other hand, OpenFL provides the following key features:

  • Vector Graphics
  • Seamless support for image, canvas and typed array pixel stores
  • Text Support

Apache Cordova and OpenFL are both open source tools. It seems that OpenFL with 1.42K GitHub stars and 331 forks on GitHub has more adoption than Apache Cordova with 791 GitHub stars and 332 GitHub forks.

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Advice on Apache Cordova, OpenFL

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
OpenFL
OpenFL

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.

It enables creative expression for the desktop, mobile and web. Enterprise applications and best-selling games are made with it, publishing native, Flash and HTML5 applications using one seamless toolset.

Cross-platform (CLI) workflow;Platform-centered workflow;Hundreds of plugins
Vector Graphics; Seamless support for image, canvas and typed array pixel stores;Text Support;Sound Support; Batched tile rendering; Video rendering; Asset management; MovieClip animations
Statistics
GitHub Stars
955
GitHub Stars
2.1K
GitHub Forks
345
GitHub Forks
475
Stacks
686
Stacks
11
Followers
892
Followers
15
Votes
218
Votes
0
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
No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available
TypeScript
TypeScript
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code
Linux
Linux
JavaScript
JavaScript
ES6
ES6
IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ IDEA
Sublime Text
Sublime Text
macOS
macOS
Windows
Windows
Haxe
Haxe

What are some alternatives to Apache Cordova, OpenFL?

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.

Flutter

Flutter

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

React Native

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.

Xamarin

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.

NativeScript

NativeScript

NativeScript enables developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Universal while sharing the application code across the platforms. When building the application UI, developers use our libraries, which abstract the differences between the native platforms.

Framework7

Framework7

It is a free and open source mobile HTML framework to develop hybrid mobile apps or web apps with iOS native look and feel. All you need to make it work is a simple HTML layout and attached framework's CSS and JS files.

Electron

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.

Qt

Qt

Qt, a leading cross-platform application and UI framework. With Qt, you can develop applications once and deploy to leading desktop, embedded & mobile targets.

PhoneGap

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.

Expo

Expo

It is a framework and a platform for universal React applications. It is a set of tools and services built around React Native and native platforms that help you develop, build, deploy, and quickly iterate on iOS, Android, and web apps.

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