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PhoneGap vs Sencha Touch

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

PhoneGap
584
685
+ 1
94
Sencha Touch
78
90
+ 1
28
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PhoneGap vs Sencha Touch: What are the differences?

What is PhoneGap? 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.

What is Sencha Touch? The leading mobile web app framework based on HTML5 for amazing mobile apps. 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.

PhoneGap and Sencha Touch can be primarily classified as "Cross-Platform Mobile Development" tools.

Some of the features offered by PhoneGap are:

  • Android
  • Blackberry
  • iOS

On the other hand, Sencha Touch provides the following key features:

  • 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.

"Javascript" is the top reason why over 44 developers like PhoneGap, while over 7 developers mention "Structured code" as the leading cause for choosing Sencha Touch.

PhoneGap is an open source tool with 4.15K GitHub stars and 974 GitHub forks. Here's a link to PhoneGap's open source repository on GitHub.

Advice on PhoneGap and Sencha Touch
Alejandro Pérez
| 7 upvotes · 555.9K views
Needs advice
on
IonicIonicPhoneGapPhoneGap
and
React NativeReact Native

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.

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Replies (4)
Alcides Costa
CEO, Co-founder at inPlace · | 6 upvotes · 63.5K views
Recommends
on
KivyKivy

If your team has a strong background in Python and you want to release some prototype soon, you could try Python and Kivy. Kivy is an open-source, cross-platform Python framework for rapid development of mobile GUIs. It supports both iOS and Android. I have passed a similar situation recently: to start a mobile app with no background in mobile development. Kivy saved me a lot of time. I could develop a prototype and release it faster than I thoght.

See more
Frederico Bezerra
Engineering at Xtartup · | 5 upvotes · 64.9K views
Recommends
on
ExpoExpoReact NativeReact Native

To be honest , You need to think these points :

  • Developer Experience

  • Tooling

  • Maintainability

My vote for now is going with React Native with Expo , using Typescript...

With this stack You could follow some patterns and principle that the Java and python programmers are familiar with.

Typescript is a javascript Superset that you can follow Procedural , Functional and OOP approaches and an easy learning curve.

With Expo you need to concern only with the shared layer (Typescript) and the Native ones will be expo responsibility.

Please check Expo.com and try to get started using typescript.

Good performance and with EAS (paid plan) you can create a full CI CD pipeline for your app connected to the stores(Apple and Android).

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Max Lynch
at Ionic · | 3 upvotes · 37.2K views
Recommends
on
CapacitorCapacitorIonicIonic

If you already know how to build web apps, give Capacitor a try. You can think of it like "electron for mobile" in that you can build a web app but access native functionality. Pair it with Ionic if you want a UI kit that is optimized for mobile, or build your own UI from scratch.

A bonus to Capacitor is your app will run without modification on the web as a PWA, iOS, Android, and more.

See more
woodcockjosh
| 2 upvotes · 32.7K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Other tools have very slow performance. They are usually selected because someone on the team likes Angular, but your customers won't care what framework you're using. They'll just know the app is slow.

See more
Decisions about PhoneGap and Sencha Touch
James Bender
Lead Application Architect at TekPartners · | 5 upvotes · 58K views
Chose
Android SDKAndroid SDKKotlinKotlinSwiftSwift
over
Apache CordovaApache CordovaFlutterFlutterPhoneGapPhoneGapReact NativeReact NativeXamarinXamarin

I've yet to see a non-native application that I felt performed as well and/or provided the same user experience with Cordova/PhoneGap/Xamarin. Frankly, at best they all seemed like underpowered web applications deployed to a sandbox that ran on a phone. They didn't feel "slick" or "mobile-first" and in some cases the performance was unacceptable. At previous companies, we built a few of these apps at the client's insistence, and in every case, they re-engaged us about 18 months later to re-write the app(s) natively.

We are doing some research on React Native and Flutter, but I am not yet convinced that they can provide the same level of experience and performance as native, though I am trying to keep an open mind.

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Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 2 upvotes · 113.2K views
Shared a protip
on
Apache CordovaApache CordovaPhoneGapPhoneGapProGuardProGuard
at
()
What is 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 in Cordova 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!

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of PhoneGap
Pros of Sencha Touch
  • 46
    Javascript
  • 13
    Backed by Adobe
  • 11
    Free
  • 9
    Easy and developer friendly
  • 6
    Support more platforms
  • 3
    It's javascript, html, and css
  • 2
    Common code base across all mobile platform
  • 1
    Not bound to specific framework
  • 1
    Powerful Framework
  • 1
    Runs on mobile browser
  • 1
    Similar UI across all platform
  • 0
    Free easy fast and not buggy in my experience
  • 8
    Structured code
  • 5
    Mvc
  • 5
    PhoneGap intergation
  • 3
    Customised Component
  • 2
    Rich Charting Components
  • 2
    Mobile oriented theme
  • 2
    Easy Data Binding
  • 1
    Open source

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of PhoneGap
Cons of Sencha Touch
  • 2
    Never as good as a native app
  • 1
    Created for web pages, not for complex Apps
  • 1
    Poor user experience
  • 1
    Not build for high performance
  • 1
    Hard to see
    Be the first to leave a con

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is 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.

    What is Sencha Touch?

    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.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use PhoneGap?
    What companies use Sencha Touch?
    Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
    Learn More

    Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

    What tools integrate with PhoneGap?
    What tools integrate with Sencha Touch?

    Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

    What are some alternatives to PhoneGap and Sencha Touch?
    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.
    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.
    PWA
    Building a high-quality Progressive Web App has incredible benefits, making it easy to delight your users, grow engagement and increase conversions.It is intended to work on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser.
    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.
    See all alternatives

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