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NativeScript vs Polymer

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NativeScript
521
1K
+ 1
516
Polymer
425
453
+ 1
121
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NativeScript vs Polymer: What are the differences?

What is NativeScript? Build truly native apps with 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.

What is Polymer? A new library built on top of Web Components, designed to leverage the evolving web platform on modern browsers. Polymer is a new type of library for the web, designed to leverage the existing browser infrastructure to provide the encapsulation and extendability currently only available in JS libraries. Polymer is based on a set of future technologies, including Shadow DOM, Custom Elements and Model Driven Views. Currently these technologies are implemented as polyfills or shims, but as browsers adopt these features natively, the platform code that drives Polymer evacipates, leaving only the value-adds.

NativeScript and Polymer are primarily classified as "Cross-Platform Mobile Development" and "Front-End Frameworks" tools respectively.

"Access to the entire native api" is the top reason why over 55 developers like NativeScript, while over 48 developers mention "Web components" as the leading cause for choosing Polymer.

NativeScript and Polymer are both open source tools. Polymer with 21.1K GitHub stars and 2K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than NativeScript with 17.1K GitHub stars and 1.26K GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Polymer has a broader approval, being mentioned in 41 company stacks & 30 developers stacks; compared to NativeScript, which is listed in 10 company stacks and 23 developer stacks.

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Pros of NativeScript
Pros of Polymer
  • 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
  • 37
    Typescript support
  • 35
    Backed up by google and telerik
  • 29
    Css support
  • 27
    Cross-platform declarative ui and code
  • 25
    Fully open source under apache 2.0 license
  • 11
    Vuejs support
  • 9
    60fps performance
  • 6
    Powerful data visualization with native UI
  • 5
    VS Code integration
  • 5
    No need for Mac to build iOS apps in Telerik Platform
  • 5
    Angular, typescript and javascript support
  • 4
    Extended CLI support
  • 4
    Cloud builds as part of Telerik PLatform
  • 4
    Truly Object-Oriented with Typescript
  • 4
    On-device debugging
  • 4
    Extensibility
  • 3
    Access to entire native api
  • 3
    0 day support for new OS updates
  • 3
    Easiest of all other frameworks
  • 3
    Easy to learn
  • 3
    Backed by google
  • 3
    Live reload
  • 3
    Publishing modules to NPM
  • 2
    Vue.js support out of the box
  • 2
    VueJS support
  • 2
    Svelte support
  • 2
    Powerfull mobile services as part of Telerik Platform
  • 2
    Native ui with angular
  • 2
    Vue support
  • 1
    Playground
  • 1
    Hot Reload
  • 1
    HMR via webpack
  • 1
    Very small app size
  • 1
    Write once, use anywhere
  • 1
    Easy to use, support for almost all npm packages
  • 1
    Rich ecosystem
  • 1
    Compile to Apple/Google Stores via CloudCompiler
  • 1
    Has CSS ;-)
  • 1
    It works with Angular
  • 1
    Code reuse with your website
  • 0
    Dart
  • 51
    Web components
  • 30
    Material design
  • 14
    HTML
  • 13
    Components
  • 5
    Open source
  • 4
    It uses the platform
  • 3
    Designer friendly. HTMLX concepts
  • 1
    Like the interesting naming convention for elements

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Cons of NativeScript
Cons of Polymer
  • 5
    Lack of promotion
  • 1
    Slower Performance compared to competitors
  • 1
    Last version is like 2 years ago? that's totally rad

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What is 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.

What is Polymer?

Polymer is a new type of library for the web, designed to leverage the existing browser infrastructure to provide the encapsulation and extendability currently only available in JS libraries. Polymer is based on a set of future technologies, including Shadow DOM, Custom Elements and Model Driven Views. Currently these technologies are implemented as polyfills or shims, but as browsers adopt these features natively, the platform code that drives Polymer evacipates, leaving only the value-adds.

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What companies use NativeScript?
What companies use Polymer?
See which teams inside your own company are using NativeScript or Polymer.
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What tools integrate with NativeScript?
What tools integrate with Polymer?
    No integrations found

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    What are some alternatives to NativeScript and Polymer?
    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.
    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.
    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.
    React
    Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.
    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.
    See all alternatives

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