Ionic vs NativeScript

Overview

Ionic

Stacks9.5K

Followers8.6K

Votes1.8K

NativeScript

Stacks533

Followers1.1K

Votes516

GitHub Stars25.3K

Forks1.7K

Ionic vs NativeScript: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Ionic and NativeScript

Ionic and NativeScript are two popular frameworks for developing cross-platform mobile applications. While both frameworks enable developers to create mobile apps using web technologies, there are several key differences that set them apart.

Development Language: Ionic uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build mobile apps. On the other hand, NativeScript allows developers to write apps in JavaScript or TypeScript, and also provides access to native APIs.
UI Rendering: Ionic uses a WebView component to render the user interface of the mobile app, which means the app's UI is displayed within a web browser container. In contrast, NativeScript uses the native UI components of the underlying platform (iOS or Android) to build the app's UI, resulting in a more native-like feel.
Performance: NativeScript has the advantage of using native UI components, which can result in better performance compared to Ionic's WebView approach. NativeScript apps also have better access to device capabilities and can take full advantage of platform-specific features.
Plugin Ecosystem: Ionic boasts a large and mature plugin ecosystem that allows developers to easily access device features like camera, geolocation, and push notifications. NativeScript, however, provides direct access to native APIs, which gives developers more flexibility and control when working with device functionalities.
Developer Experience: Ionic offers a more streamlined and beginner-friendly development experience with its command-line interface (CLI) and extensive documentation. NativeScript, while more powerful in terms of accessing native APIs, can be more complex to set up and work with, especially for developers new to mobile app development.
Community and Support: Ionic has a larger and more active community, which means there are more resources, tutorials, and libraries available for developers. NativeScript, though smaller in terms of community size, has a dedicated and helpful community of developers who are passionate about the framework.

In summary, Ionic and NativeScript differ in the development language, UI rendering approach, performance, plugin ecosystem, developer experience, and community support. Depending on your specific requirements and expertise, either of these frameworks could be a suitable choice for developing cross-platform mobile applications.

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Advice on Ionic, NativeScript

Anonymous

CEO at ME!

Jun 7, 2020

Decided

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.

403k views403k

Comments

Saber

Senior software engineer at Shortcut

Jun 28, 2021

Needs adviceon

Ionic

React Native

JavaScript

Greetings!

I have been searching lately for frameworks to build mobile apps.

We are trying to make something like a quiz app as a way for customers to contact us. I considered Ionic and React Native because we use JavaScript most of the time in websites, e.g., Vue.js/Nuxt.js. But Flutter seems a decent choice as well, especially since you can use Android/iOS-like components. We are looking for something that works in the long term, something that's time and cost-effective, especially when paired with backend services like Firebase or a GraphQL server. I would like to know your opinions and recommendations. Thank you!

281k views281k

Comments

Alejandro

Aug 20, 2021

Needs adviceon

Java

Python

AngularJS

Looking for some advice: we are planning to create a hybrid app for both iOS and Android; this app will consume a REST API. We are looking for a tool for this development with the following attributes:

Shallow learning curve; easiness to adopt (all team is new into mobile development, with diverse backgrounds: Java, Python & AngularJS),
Easiness to test (we discarded Angular-based tools already: creating a unit test in Angular we considered time-consuming and low value. At this point of the project, we cannot afford UI testing with Selenium/Appium based tools).
So far, we are not considering any specific capability of the device. Still, in the mid/long term, we would require the usage of GPS (geolocalization) and accelerometer (not sure if it's possible to use it from a hybrid app). Suggest any other tool if you wish.

565k views565k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Ionic	NativeScript
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.	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.
Performance obsessed;Utilizes Angular and React;Native focused;Beautifully designed;Based on Web Components;	100% Access to Native Platform API;NativeScript is free of charge as an open source project;Code with JavaScript. Style with CSS;Cross-platform UI abstractions;Shared business logic and data models
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 25.3K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 1.7K
Stacks 9.5K	Stacks 533
Followers 8.6K	Followers 1.1K
Votes 1.8K	Votes 516
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 75 Access to the entire native api 47 Support for native ios and android libraries 46 Support for javascript libraries 46 Angular 2.0 support 44 Native ux and performance Cons 5 Lack of promotion 1 Slower Performance compared to competitors

What are some alternatives to Ionic, NativeScript?

Flutter

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

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.

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

Ionic vs NativeScript: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Ionic and NativeScript

Development Language: Ionic uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build mobile apps. On the other hand, NativeScript allows developers to write apps in JavaScript or TypeScript, and also provides access to native APIs.
UI Rendering: Ionic uses a WebView component to render the user interface of the mobile app, which means the app's UI is displayed within a web browser container. In contrast, NativeScript uses the native UI components of the underlying platform (iOS or Android) to build the app's UI, resulting in a more native-like feel.
Performance: NativeScript has the advantage of using native UI components, which can result in better performance compared to Ionic's WebView approach. NativeScript apps also have better access to device capabilities and can take full advantage of platform-specific features.
Plugin Ecosystem: Ionic boasts a large and mature plugin ecosystem that allows developers to easily access device features like camera, geolocation, and push notifications. NativeScript, however, provides direct access to native APIs, which gives developers more flexibility and control when working with device functionalities.
Developer Experience: Ionic offers a more streamlined and beginner-friendly development experience with its command-line interface (CLI) and extensive documentation. NativeScript, while more powerful in terms of accessing native APIs, can be more complex to set up and work with, especially for developers new to mobile app development.
Community and Support: Ionic has a larger and more active community, which means there are more resources, tutorials, and libraries available for developers. NativeScript, though smaller in terms of community size, has a dedicated and helpful community of developers who are passionate about the framework.

Ionic vs NativeScript

Overview

Ionic vs NativeScript: What are the differences?