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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Cross Platform Mobile Development
  5. Ionic vs React Native vs Sencha Touch

Ionic vs React Native vs Sencha Touch

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch
Stacks78
Followers90
Votes28
Ionic
Ionic
Stacks9.5K
Followers8.6K
Votes1.8K
React Native
React Native
Stacks34.4K
Followers29.5K
Votes1.2K
GitHub Stars124.4K
Forks24.9K

Ionic vs React Native vs Sencha Touch: What are the differences?

Introduction: In the realm of mobile app development, there are various frameworks available such as Ionic, React Native, and Sencha Touch. Each of these frameworks has its own set of features and advantages. This markdown will highlight the key differences between Ionic, React Native, and Sencha Touch.

  1. Language Support: Ionic primarily uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for app development, making it easier for web developers to transition to mobile development. React Native utilizes JavaScript for coding, specifically the React framework. Sencha Touch, on the other hand, utilizes Sencha’s preferred programming language Ext JS, which may require a learning curve for developers unfamiliar with it.

  2. Performance and User Experience: React Native stands out for performance as it compiles to native code, providing a smoother user experience. Ionic, built on web technologies, may not match the performance level of React Native. Sencha Touch offers good performance but may not be as fast as React Native due to the difference in underlying technologies.

  3. APIs and Components: React Native boasts a vast library of APIs and ready-to-use components, enabling developers to incorporate complex functionalities with ease. Ionic also provides a range of plugins and components, but React Native edges ahead in this aspect. Sencha Touch includes a comprehensive set of UI components and APIs, but it may not be as extensive as React Native or Ionic.

  4. Platform Support: React Native supports both iOS and Android platforms, ensuring a wider reach for app developers. Ionic, too, supports iOS and Android, with the added advantage of being able to develop progressive web apps. Sencha Touch also supports iOS and Android platforms but may not have the same level of community support as React Native or Ionic.

  5. Community and Documentation: React Native benefits from a large and active community, offering extensive documentation, tutorials, and support forums for developers. Ionic also has a strong community following, providing regular updates and resources for developers. Sencha Touch, while having a dedicated user base, may not have as vast a community support as React Native or Ionic.

  6. Ease of Testing and Debugging: React Native offers robust tools for testing and debugging, streamlining the development process and aiding in identifying and fixing issues quickly. Ionic also provides testing and debugging tools, but React Native's capabilities may be more advanced. Sencha Touch offers testing and debugging features, but it may not be as seamless as React Native or Ionic.

In Summary, Ionic, React Native, and Sencha Touch each have unique strengths and weaknesses in terms of language support, performance, API availability, platform support, community engagement, and testing/debugging capabilities. Developers must carefully consider these factors when choosing a framework for their mobile app development needs.

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Advice on Sencha Touch, Ionic, React Native

Nick
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
Andrea
Andrea

May 26, 2020

Needs adviceonVue.jsVue.jsVue NativeVue NativeReactReact

I'm a huge fan of Vue.js and I'm pretty comfortable with it. I need to build a mobile app for my company and I was now wondering whether I could make use of VueJS with Vue Native instead of switching to React. I know Vue Native builds on top of RN. My question is whether I'd have as much freedom with Vue Native over RN and whether you feel like Vue Native is "production ready" or not. Not sure of which shortcomings I may find using Vue Native... Thanks a lot!!!

336k views336k
Comments
Anonymous
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

Detailed Comparison

Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch
Ionic
Ionic
React Native
React Native

Sencha Touch 2, a high-performance HTML5 mobile application framework, is the cornerstone of the Sencha HTML5 platform. Built for enabling world-class user experiences, Sencha Touch 2 is the only framework that enables developers to build fast and impressive apps that work on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Kindle Fire, and more.

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.

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.

Built on HTML5 Technology- Sencha Touch 2, a high-performance HTML5 mobile application framework, is the cornerstone of the Sencha HTML5 platform.;Smoother Scrolling and Animations- Sencha Touch 2 provides a user experience unparalleled in HTML5. Fluid Adaptive Layouts- Sencha Touch’s novel layout engine leverages HTML5 in powerful ways to let developers build complex applications that respond, load, and layout in a snap.;Navigation View- The new Navigation View component makes it easy to make applications that feature beautiful animated transitions between screens as well as providing automatic back button management.;Class System- Sencha Touch 2 builds on the class system from Ext JS 4. Developers can take advantage of powerful features like dynamic loading and mixins, all making it easy to create minified custom builds for your application.;Component DataView- The new Component DataView enables you to build beautiful interfaces based on a Model and a Store. It’s easy to create a template that has full featured components instead of simple HTML templates so you can bind, listen, and control components inside of a DataView.;Advanced List Plugins- Lists are one of the most popular components in Sencha Touch, and with 2.0 we’ve updated two of the most powerful plugins: Pull to Refresh and Load More. These plugins, activated with a single line of code, deliver a fantastic List experience out of the box.;Infinite Carousel- Carousels are a great way of showing multiple screens of information in a constrained space. In Sencha Touch 2 they get even more powerful, with a data-bound Carousel supporting an infinite number of items. No need to worry about performance, or memory — Sencha Touch manages it for you, so scrolling is consistently smooth.;Config System- Sencha Touch 2 has a great API thanks largely to its config system. Almost any configuration of any component can be changed at run time, with a consistent and predictable API.;AJAX - Sencha Touch provides full AJAX support, including CORS and JSON-P;DOM manipulation - Full DOM manipulation support available;Feature Detection - Automatically detects the presence of features like geolocation, canvas and orientation support;Geolocation - Provides a simple wrapper around geolocation on devices that support it;Icons - 300 icons included;Example apps - 8 full example apps included;Touch events - Provides a full range of touch events and gestures like tap, swipe and pinch
Performance obsessed;Utilizes Angular and React;Native focused;Beautifully designed;Based on Web Components;
Native iOS Components;Asynchronous Execution;Touch Handling;Flexbox and Styling; Polyfills
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
124.4K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
24.9K
Stacks
78
Stacks
9.5K
Stacks
34.4K
Followers
90
Followers
8.6K
Followers
29.5K
Votes
28
Votes
1.8K
Votes
1.2K
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 8
    Structured code
  • 5
    Mvc
  • 5
    PhoneGap intergation
  • 3
    Customised Component
  • 2
    Easy Data Binding
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
  • 214
    Learn once write everywhere
  • 174
    Cross platform
  • 169
    Javascript
  • 122
    Native ios components
  • 69
    Built by facebook
Cons
  • 24
    Javascript
  • 19
    Built by facebook
  • 12
    Cant use CSS
  • 4
    30 FPS Limit
  • 2
    Generate large apk even for a simple app

What are some alternatives to Sencha Touch, Ionic, React Native?

Flutter

Flutter

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

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.

Apache Cordova

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

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

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.

Vue Native

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

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.

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