Application developers have been a specialist in building for one platform in the traditional case, either Android or iOS. Top mobile app developers in India have now diverted their focus on building Android as well as iOS applications on the same framework.
While Ionic apps are built with Cordova, React Native is like React and makes use of native components instead of web components as building blocks. Cordova on other hand provides plugin architecture for accessing native functionality which is beyond the reach of JavaScript on the web browser. This is also the reason behind Cordova file structure.
What is Ionic Framework?
Ionic is an open source software development kit (SDK), which can be used for developing hybrid applications with HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. It is an HTML 5 framework basically wrapped with Cordova or PhoneGap. Usually used to develop mobile applications, it forms the basis of more advanced development frameworks. Hybrid mobile app frameworks are no more clunky and jerky and new kids have surfaced the block with decent features for mobile app development. It comes with a library of mobile-optimized HTML, AngularJS, and CSS components, tools, and gestures for building highly interactive mobile apps.
Ionic is not just a framework, it will empower you to do almost everything directly from the CLI interface like creating, building, deploying and uploading projects. Learn basics of Ionic here.
Advantages and applications of Ionic Framework
If you prefer doing your work online then you can use any number of online IDE tools to work on your Ionic Applications. If you want to show your application to your customers then you can upload it to Ionic. In case you have created a 3rd part plugin, starter app or theme then simply upload it at Ionic Market and make some money out of it.
What is good with Ionic?
- Ionic is platform independent and can be combined with any of the scripting platforms be it HTML/HTML5, Cascade Style Sheets, JavaScript, Angular JS or Jquery
- It’s now easy to create default mobile App UI functionalities with Ionic
- Ionic uses Android’s WebView and IOS’s UIWebView
- Ionic supports TypeScript
- Ionic comes wrapped in Cordova or PhoneGap and makes it easy to access hardware functionality
- It supports Android and iOS, although it works unofficially on Windows Mobile Platform
- Works well on desktop browsers but is also optimized for touch devices
- It is a CLI tool and thus you will not need to use Cordova CLI
- Supports SAAS
- Has support for Cordova, PhoneGap
- It offers a wide range of 3rd part resources, themes, plugins and starter apps
- Ionic offers a sizable number of tools like Ionic.IO and Ionic Market etc.
- You will get excellent support from the Ionic forum
What is bad with Ionic?
Top cross-platform application development companies weigh all pros and cons before considering Ionic for cross-platform app development:
- Ionic needs to buck up with OnsenUI in case of features
- Performance slack
- Non-impressive User Interface
- No support for gaming applications
What is React Native Framework?
Mobile apps built in React Native is not just a simple “mobile web app”, an “HTML5 app”, or a “hybrid app”, it will enable you to create identical mobile applications than the apps built in objective-c or java. React Native will give you a truly native experience based on JavaScript and React. If you were deploying your Android and iOS applications on separate systems, you can try working on both platforms on a single system with the same code with React Native. Pretty much same as regular iOS and Android apps, just a little bit of JavaScript and React is required to make a perfect React Native Mobile App. It basically quickens deployment cycle as well as declarative self-contained UI components, besides retaining the speed, accuracy, quality and actual flavor of native applications. Learn basics of React Native here.
Advantages and Applications of React Native
React Native has an array of advantages too. Have a look:
- No compilation is required with Hot Reloading
Reload your application instantly instead of recompiling. Retain your application state while still running new code.
- Use Native on demand
Top react native app development companies drop down to native code to optimize few aspects of your application. Plus you have the liberty to build one part of your application in React Native and the other part of the Native code. This is the working principle behind native applications like Instagram, Skype, facebook etc.
- Virtual Dom for UI
- Rich native UI Experience
- You’ll have a ball with React Native as compared to ionic and Native Script
What is bad with React Native?
Top react native app development companies still face the heat with React Native sometimes in terms of memory and CPU. List of few points to consider:
- Suits more to iOS than Android. Read more here.
- Needs more memory than other frameworks
- As with memory CPU utilization is also high
Final Words
Cross/hybrid mobile apps have a shorter development cycle, are relatively cheaper, and owing to the common codebase they effectively eliminate effort overlaps. But the problem with hybrid apps is that they are infamous for poor performance, inferior user experience, and lacking features. Not every cross platform application falls short on these features but it really depends upon the technology on which it is built. Ionic was developed by Drifty while react native was developed by Facebook. If you are looking for an economic way of developing applications them you must consider hybrid mobile app development.
Applications developed in react native can be shared across platform, that makes it easy to develop it in both android as well as in iOS. Ionic on other hand provides adequate tools and services to build mobile applications in HTML, CSS, SAAS etc. It provides a great solution for building mobile web apps as well as native apps. Ionic is preferable over native framework due to high delivery speed and effectiveness of applications.