Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Appcelerator vs PhoneGap: What are the differences?
Developers describe Appcelerator as "Build network-connected mobile applications across native platforms and the web". Appcelerator is the first mobile platform to combine the flexibility of open source development technologies with the power of cloud services. On the other hand, PhoneGap is detailed as "Easilily create mobile apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript". 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.
Appcelerator and PhoneGap are primarily classified as "Mobile Backend" and "Cross-Platform Mobile Development" tools respectively.
Some of the features offered by Appcelerator are:
- Library of over 20 pre-built common services that are both proven and robust, to reduce integration time and risk, services such as push notification, status updates, photo storage, and social integration, or create your own custom cloud services.
- Client-side APIs for any development platform (e.g. Titanium, iOS SDK, Android SDK)
- Extensibility enabling you to build your own custom cloud application development services in Node.js on the Appcelerator cloud for all your mobile apps.
On the other hand, PhoneGap provides the following key features:
- Android
- Blackberry
- iOS
"Easy to learn" is the primary reason why developers consider Appcelerator over the competitors, whereas "Javascript" was stated as the key factor in picking PhoneGap.
PhoneGap is an open source tool with 4.15K GitHub stars and 973 GitHub forks. Here's a link to PhoneGap's open source repository on GitHub.
According to the StackShare community, PhoneGap has a broader approval, being mentioned in 118 company stacks & 291 developers stacks; compared to Appcelerator, which is listed in 13 company stacks and 23 developer stacks.
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 inCordova 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!
Pros of Appcelerator
- Android5
- Open Source4
- Easy to learn4
- Great community2
- Javascript2
- IOS2
- Angular.js beta1
- Vue.js beta1
- Native UI1
- Lots of native modules, components, libraries1
- MVC-based1
- Paid plans available1
- Free1
- Write directly to iOS and Android SDK with JavaScript1
Pros of PhoneGap
- Javascript46
- Backed by Adobe13
- Free11
- Easy and developer friendly9
- Support more platforms6
- It's javascript, html, and css3
- Common code base across all mobile platform2
- Not bound to specific framework1
- Powerful Framework1
- Runs on mobile browser1
- Similar UI across all platform1
- Free easy fast and not buggy in my experience0
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Appcelerator
- No online IDE1
Cons of PhoneGap
- Never as good as a native app2
- Created for web pages, not for complex Apps1
- Poor user experience1
- Not build for high performance1
- Hard to see1
