Flutter vs Ionic

Overview

Ionic

Stacks9.5K

Followers8.6K

Votes1.8K

Flutter

Stacks17.7K

Followers16.8K

Votes1.2K

GitHub Stars173.7K

Forks29.4K

Flutter vs Ionic: What are the differences?

Introduction

Flutter and Ionic are two popular frameworks used for developing cross-platform mobile applications. While both frameworks aim to offer a unified codebase for building applications on multiple platforms, there are several key differences between them.

Performance: Flutter has a native-like performance as it uses a compiled programming language (Dart) and renders its own UI components. On the other hand, Ionic uses web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which may sometimes result in slower performance compared to Flutter.
User Interface: Flutter provides a rich set of customizable UI widgets that deliver a consistent and polished look across different platforms. Ionic, on the other hand, relies on web technologies and uses pre-built UI components that may not always provide the same level of native-like user experience.
Development Speed: Flutter offers a hot reload feature that allows developers to see the changes instantly without rebuilding the whole application. This feature significantly speeds up the development process. Ionic also provides a similar hot reload feature, but it may be slower compared to Flutter due to its dependency on web technologies.
Native Compatibility: Flutter compiles down to native code, providing access to all device capabilities and features. This allows developers to create applications that have a smoother integration with the native platform. Ionic, being built on web technologies, may face limitations and may require additional plugins or workarounds to access certain native features.
Community and Ecosystem: Flutter has gained significant popularity and has a rapidly growing community of developers. It also has a rich ecosystem with numerous packages and libraries available for different use cases. Although Ionic also has a decent community, it may not be as large or well-established as Flutter's community.
Learning Curve: Flutter uses Dart as its programming language, which may require developers to learn a new language if they are not familiar with it. Ionic, on the other hand, uses web technologies that are more widely known and used. This familiarity may make it easier for developers to get started with Ionic if they already have experience in web development.

In summary, Flutter offers better performance, a more native-like user interface, and faster development speed compared to Ionic. However, Ionic may have an advantage when it comes to leveraging existing web development skills and a larger community. Ultimately, the choice between Flutter and Ionic depends on the specific requirements and preferences of the project.

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Advice on Ionic, Flutter

Nick

CTO at Pickio

Jun 2, 2020

Decided

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.

491k views491k

Comments

Allison

software engineer at AWS

Jan 12, 2021

Needs adviceon

Flutter

React Native

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!

106k views106k

Comments

Nikhilesh

Senior Embedded Engineer at GreyOrange

Jul 27, 2020

Needs adviceon

Unity

C++

Python

Hi Friends, I am new to @{#MobileAppDevelopment}|topic:null| 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.

514k views514k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Ionic	Flutter
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 is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Performance obsessed;Utilizes Angular and React;Native focused;Beautifully designed;Based on Web Components;	Fast development - Flutter's "hot reload" helps you quickly and easily experiment, build UIs, add features, and fix bug faster. Experience sub-second reload times, without losing state, on emulators, simulators, and hardware for iOS and Android.;Expressive UIs - Delight your users with Flutter's built-in beautiful Material Design and Cupertino (iOS-flavor) widgets, rich motion APIs, smooth natural scrolling, and platform awareness.;Access native features and SDKs - Make your app come to life with platform APIs, 3rd party SDKs, and native code. Flutter lets you reuse your existing Java, Swift, and ObjC code, and access native features and SDKs on iOS and Android.
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 173.7K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 29.4K
Stacks 9.5K	Stacks 17.7K
Followers 8.6K	Followers 16.8K
Votes 1.8K	Votes 1.2K
Pros & Cons
Pros 248 Allows for rapid prototyping 228 Hybrid mobile 208 It's angularjs 186 Free 179 It's javascript, html, and css Cons 20 Not suitable for high performance or UI intensive apps 15 Not meant for game development 2 Not a native app	Pros 149 Hot Reload 126 Cross platform 107 Performance 90 Backed by Google 74 Compiled into Native Code Cons 29 Need to learn Dart 11 Lack of community support 10 No 3D Graphics Engine Support 8 Graphics programming 6 Lack of friendly documentation
Integrations
No integrations available	Android SDK Firebase Dart

What are some alternatives to Ionic, Flutter?

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’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 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.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

Vue Native

Vue Native is a mobile framework to build truly native mobile app using Vue.js. Its is designed to connect React Native and Vue.js. Vue Native is a wrapper around React Native APIs, which allows you to use Vue.js and compose rich mobile User Interface.

Shoutem UI

Shoutem UI is a set of styleable components that enables you to build beautiful React Native applications for iOS and Android. All of our components are built to be both composable and customizable.

Related Comparisons

Flutter vs Ionic: What are the differences?

Introduction

Performance: Flutter has a native-like performance as it uses a compiled programming language (Dart) and renders its own UI components. On the other hand, Ionic uses web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which may sometimes result in slower performance compared to Flutter.
User Interface: Flutter provides a rich set of customizable UI widgets that deliver a consistent and polished look across different platforms. Ionic, on the other hand, relies on web technologies and uses pre-built UI components that may not always provide the same level of native-like user experience.
Development Speed: Flutter offers a hot reload feature that allows developers to see the changes instantly without rebuilding the whole application. This feature significantly speeds up the development process. Ionic also provides a similar hot reload feature, but it may be slower compared to Flutter due to its dependency on web technologies.
Native Compatibility: Flutter compiles down to native code, providing access to all device capabilities and features. This allows developers to create applications that have a smoother integration with the native platform. Ionic, being built on web technologies, may face limitations and may require additional plugins or workarounds to access certain native features.
Community and Ecosystem: Flutter has gained significant popularity and has a rapidly growing community of developers. It also has a rich ecosystem with numerous packages and libraries available for different use cases. Although Ionic also has a decent community, it may not be as large or well-established as Flutter's community.
Learning Curve: Flutter uses Dart as its programming language, which may require developers to learn a new language if they are not familiar with it. Ionic, on the other hand, uses web technologies that are more widely known and used. This familiarity may make it easier for developers to get started with Ionic if they already have experience in web development.

Flutter vs Ionic

Overview

Flutter vs Ionic: What are the differences?