What is the best alternative to Ionic Framework?

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score 29 · Answer 1

Onsen UI

Top Pro

Open source and free

Onsen UI is open source, and completely free to use. See More

Top Pro

Can be used for web apps as well

Onsen UI is usable for classic web development as well as mobile. See More

Top Pro

Large selection of components

Onsen UI provides a wide selection of components that are ready to use out of the box and are easily customizable. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Onsen UI provides very clear, well-written and detailed documentation. It uses popular technologies that are likely already familiar to developers (such as jQuery and Angular). The framework is semantic and intuitive to use, making it quite fast to learn. See More

Top Pro

Supports React

React is the most trending front-end UI framework, naturally supporting that is a plus. See More

Specs

License:Apache 20.0

Mobile targets:iOS, Android

29 1

score 96 · Answer 2

React Native

Top Pro

Allows you to develop native apps

React Native allows you to create native apps by generating native views with JavaScript instead of using a web wrapper. See More

Top Con

If core team doesn't use a certain feature, it's not developed

Whenever there's functionality you need that they don't use in their apps, it's not going to get developed by them, even if it's obvious it should be in the core. They always say to either submit a PR or create a separate module. See More

Top Pro

Large, supportive community

Despite being such a young framework (early 2015), the support for React Native grew quickly. There is a forum, active tag on Stackoverflow and many other ways to get help from the community. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

React Native is not the most beginner-friendly framework for creating mobile apps with JavaScript. It requires that the developer know React, which is known to have a steep learning curve. See More

Top Pro

Backed by Facebook

Facebook writes their mobile apps in React Native so the code base gets pretty thoroughly used in some highly demanding scenarios. See More

Top Con

React native only supports react which is getting old

React native is only based on react which is getting old. An old tech developer can't take much breaking changes so it gets more patchs. There is a limit, and react is too verbose and complex. better alternatives available today. See More

Top Pro

More predictable control of the state

The one way data flow, makes it more predictable and easy to control. See More

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96 36

score 155 · Answer 3

Quasar Framework

Top Pro

Uses Vue.js 2.0

Vue 3.x available as a plugin. See More

Top Con

Developed by a single person

Statistically, apps being developed by a single person can be gone without warning. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation and coding samples

Top Pro

Massive suite of well test & optimized widgets

Instant rebuild for SPA, PWA, Cordova or Electron with Material/iOS Themes. See More

Top Pro

Designed from the outset for desktop & mobile

Top Pro

Can build/test your PWA with/without PWA wrapper

Top Pro

Supports server side rendering (SSR) like Nuxt + SSR/PWA

"Icon genie" builds app icons and splash images for platforms selected. See More

Top Pro

Ability to add custom server side code when using SSR

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Web

License:MIT

Mobile targets:Android, Blueberry, iOS, Windows Phone, Web

Supported languages:Javascript, Typescript

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155 12

score 33 · Answer 4

NativeScript

Top Pro

Svelte Native

Used by Svelte framework for native development. See More

Top Con

Nativescript + Angular apps for Android tend to have long startup times.

It's very difficult to have acceptable startup times with NS+Angular in Android. It's not uncommon to see apps taking 6 sec or more to start AFTER having been optimized with Webpack (mandatory!). The same app in iOS takes only 2-3 sec. Also, this seems to happen only with the NS+Angular flavour. People using plain NS (without Angular) don't seem to have the issue. See More

Top Pro

Leverages knowledge in Angular

Angular is a very popular framework, and teams already developing angular will feel right at home with Nativescript + Angular See More

Top Pro

Works great with vue.js

33 5

score 193 · Answer 5

Flutter

Top Pro

Open source

Top Con

Still in development

According to the website, Flutter is still in its early stages of development. See More

Top Pro

Great developer tools debug/hotreload/analyser

Top Con

Based on Dart language

Dart is a Java like language, easy to learn and startup fast for millions of Java developers. BUT if you have to learn it ... it's a con. See More

Top Pro

Based on Dart language

Dart is a Java like language, easy to learn and startup fast for millions of Java developers. See More

Top Con

Dart is unpopular and never gained serious community traction like Kotlin or Java

Top Pro

A single codebase for iOS AND Android

Top Con

Does not support 32-bit iOS devices

If you plan on targeting iPhone 5, 5C or earlier, you can forget about Flutter. See More

Top Pro

Fast

The developer's goal is to allow people to make apps running at 120 FPS. See More

Top Con

Google has a bad history with product loyalty

Specs

Languages:Dart

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac and Linux

Desktop targets:announced Windows

Mobile targets:Android and iOS

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193 28

score 97 · Answer 6

Polymer

Top Pro

Various basic components

It provides a base component. See More

Top Con

No server-side rendering

Polymer does not support server-side rendering. This results in higher loading times, more HTTP requests and it's not very SEO friendly, since search engines have no way of indexing a page if it's not rendered in the server. See More

Top Pro

HTML markup is not string

HTML markup as it can be a non-string. See More

Top Pro

Flex layout components

It provides Flex layout components. See More

Top Pro

CSS is easy to apply

CSS can be applied far more comfortably than React. See More

Top Pro

No need for special debugging tools

The presence od specialized debugging tools are advertised by competitors. The all features of web components are natively supported by browser embedded development tools. See More

Top Pro

Excellent routing

The router is embedded into CLI for project creation and covers as web as Progressive web app, also fused with Polymer layouts out of the box. The shop template for CLI has a complete solution including the routing. See More

Top Pro

Complete web app stack support

Full app stack from data tier to routing, progressive web app, responsive layouts makes no need to seek outside of Polymer ecosystem for application features. In addition to waste set of mature web components in Polymer Elements along with Vaadin Elements there are thousands of web components in the wild comparable to jQuery plugins set. See More

Top Pro

Excellent documentation

Polymer guides you as with tools (cli, build environment, app templates,..) as with complimentary documentation on all phases of app development from creation of app as progresive web app to production deployment instructions. As Polymer is standards based, the whole community around those standards also helping in documentation and support. See More

Top Pro

Based on web components

Web Components are a collection of specifications released by W3C as a way to reduce the complexity of web apps by creating reusable components. Browser support is currently poor for web components, however Polymer is developed to make web components compatible with modern browsers. See More

Top Pro

API is easy to understand, based on standard

The Polymer APIs are split on application layers and follow standards on all possible ways: Web Components, CSS variables, async API via Promises and so on. See More

Specs

v2.0 GZipped size (Firefox):32K

v2.0 GZipped size (Chrome):10K

v2.0 GZipped size (Safari):13K

v2.0 GZipped size (Edge):36K

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97 22

score 5 · Answer 7

Tabris Framework

Top Pro

Real device deployment

Connect your PC and mobile device through Wi-Fi using Tabris CLI - and just hit the Refresh button in your application to see the latest code version in action. No emulators or attempts to run a mobile application in the browser. See More

Top Pro

Cordova plugins support

Most Cordova plugins work with Tabris as plug-n-play modules, without any special tuning. See More

Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

Tabris is very easy to use. You can just download Tabris Dev App from Play Store/AppStore and run any example from GitHub or code snippet from documentation right away using Playground. Documentation is easy-to-follow, and to start developing in your local environment you should only download lightweight CLI tool that will pull application code from your PC to mobile device using Wi-Fi. See More

Top Pro

Native widgets instead of web views

Tabris using native widgets - it makes your app run faster and look...native - regardless of platform. Stop trying to make your buttons look "like real iOS buttons" when you can just use the native ones. See More

Top Pro

Completely free

Framework and all required tools are free. Playground and Dev App - free. Online build services -for free. For some time local build service was under a paywall, but now that feature is also free for everyone. See More

5 0

score 3 · Answer 8

Sencha Touch

Top Con

Commercial and expensive

Sencha Touch is targeted towards enterprise-level development, and the price tag reflects that. There are many different product options available by Sencha. Most licenses start in the thousands of dollars, and require a minimum purchase of 5. See More

Top Pro

Native feel

Sencha Touch is well known for its ability to provide a native app experience through it's native-like themes and widgets. See More

Top Pro

Detailed documentation

Sencha provides exhaustive documentation that covers all aspects of developing with their products. They also provide a well written getting started guide that's easy to follow. See More

3 0

score 27 · Answer 9

Kendo UI

Top Con

Expensive commercial tools [$699, $1,499]

The other core tools developed with Kendo are the commercial tools. There is the Professional version for $699 that will result in more jQuery UI widgets and client support. The $1499 "DevCraft" Complete edition gets developers the DevCraft .NET toolbox, testing and debugging frameworks and applications, as well as priority support. See More

Top Pro

Free Core tools

Kendo UI is separated into a commercial and open source frameworks. The core of Kendo UI is in the open source frameworks, but some usability and benefits of Kendo UI are lost without the commercial version. See More

Top Pro

Platform-based UI

Kendo knows what device it is being viewed on so it can adjust the UI accordingly. If a user is on a PC the user will see things differently than on a mobile device. Between iOS and Android the user will also notice a different as it pulls from the core UI of those core systems. See More

Top Pro

Theme Builder

An interactive tool that has been created to customize an apps theme. Users are able to select from many pre-defined themes, edit them, and download the theme to bring into a project. See More

27 4

score 48 · Answer 10

Felgo (formerly V-Play)

Top Pro

Mature cross platform IDE

Qt-Creator IDE with Code Completion, Debugging and Profiling, integrated Quick Help, Version Control and more. See More

Top Con

No 3rd party tutorials

There are little to none amount of tutorials for Felgo other than what was made by the engine developers themselves. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn

Felgo is among the easiest cross-platform tools to use according to a survey done by research2guidance. See More

Top Pro

In-game level editor

With the Level Editor components, you can let your players share their levels with the whole game community which is cool because you don't need to create new levels on your own, but the community helps you with it. There are other community features like rewards for good level creators that helps getting more downloads. See More

Top Pro

Felgo game network

Leaderboards, Achievements, Challenges are available across platform, even on Desktop. You can also use Cloud Syncinc of your game data that makes it easy to start a game for example on iPhone and then continue on a Nexus Tablet or the other way around. It is also convenient because sharing to all kind of game services & networks like Facebook & Game Center is possible with a single API call. Custom hosting of Game Network servers is also possible if you want to keep the player data. See More

Top Pro

Native performance

Although game logic is provided in JavaScript by you, performance-critical parts of the engine like OpenGL ES rendering or particle effects are implemented in rock-solid C++, providing the ultimate performance your game deserves. See More

Top Pro

Advanced gaming components

Advanced Gaming Components for handling multiple display resolutions & aspect ratios, animations, particles, physics, multi-touch, gestures, path finding and more. See More

Top Pro

Felgo build server

No need for native SDKs, Build in and Install from Cloud with the Felgo Build Server. See More

Top Pro

Rapid development

Cut your development time in half. Using the QML language allows for some powerful features that cut code lines and time. Another helpful feature that can help in this area is that there are more than 50 game demos of all genres that come with full source code, meaning one can easily check to see how something was done. See More

Top Pro

Support can be found in forums and via e-mail

Felgo has friendly forums where core developers participate as well as fast & helpful email support. See More

Top Pro

Based on Qt framework

The Qt framework is a great and mature framework on its own. Using Qt as a game engine base is a smart idea. See More

Top Pro

Runtime-balancing

You can use ready-made components to balance any of your game properties at runtime, so also on mobile devices which is great for adjusting forces or input parameters. See More

Top Pro

Lots of learning resources

Helps get started and improve with lots of tutorials, demo games, examples. See More

Top Pro

Social services and monetization

In-app purchases, game and social network integration (such as Game Center and Facebook), ads (with Chartboost and AdMob) and analytics (such as Flurry) are all available across platforms. See More

Top Pro

Frequent updates

Every 2-4 weeks new updates provide additional features and fixes based on what users wanted the most. See More

Top Pro

Level store

You can even monetize these user-generated levels with in-app purchases with the Felgo Level Store component if you like. See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Languages:HTML

Dev platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux

Desktop targets:Windows; OSX; Linux

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48 11

score 15 · Answer 11

jQuery Mobile

Top Con

The project is practically abandoned

The last release was in 2014. Samsung Tizen Advanced UI (TAU), for example, was started with JQuery, but it was forked off and completely rebuilt from scratch with jQuery concepts but without JQuery dependency itself. See More

Top Pro

Resources

With HTML5 development being relatively amateur jQuery Mobile has a vast selection of resources to assist. These resources include websites, books, apps and other frameworks, 3rd party plugins and extensions, and more. All of these can help ramp up and excel the project development cycle. See More

Top Con

Clunky and slow

Top Pro

ThemeRoller

An interactive tool that has been created to customize an apps theme. Users can import a current theme, make changes, and export the theme back to the app for integration. See More

Top Con

No MVC support

There is no included MVC support in jQuery Mobile. It is possible to achieve this, however, using other frameworks such as BackboneJS in combination with jQuery Mobile, but there are a few limitations. Specifically that MVC frameworks, such as BackboneJS or KnockoutJS, are not compatible with jQuery Mobile page routing. See More

Top Pro

Download Builder

To optimize application development jQuery Mobile provides a tool to allow the user to customize the framework. It contains the ability to pick and choose which modules to include and then bundles the framework so it contains only what is needed. See More

15 5

score 32 · Answer 12

Codename One

Top Pro

High performance

Top Pro

Open source

Top Pro

Highly customizable

By utilizing lightweight component architecture and the built in graphical designer and theming options you are able to customize a good looking app on any platform. See More

Top Pro

Java 8 support

Top Pro

Works with all IDEs

Works with NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc. See More

Top Pro

Multi-platform development environments (via build server)

You can even use Linux desktops to build native iOS apps, no need for a Mac. See More

Top Pro

Vibrant & helpful community

Top Pro

Attractive pricing

It is possible to build production grade apps even with the free version. Pricing is decent when compared to competitors like Xamarin. See More

Specs

License:GPL with Classpath Exception, allows you to build proprietary applications

Languages:Java, Kotlin

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Desktop targets:Windows, Mac, Linux

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32 10

score 5 · Answer 13

Fuse

Top Pro

Native performance

Top Con

Little reuse of web knowledge

Fuse doesn't support Angular or React so there is little reuse of existing web tech knowledge. The team have said they are exploring Angular 2 and then maybe React though. See More

Top Pro

Compiles to native platform code

A key difference is that Fuse uses JS exclusively for app logic while producing native code for everything else, including population and manipulation of the UI. See More

Top Pro

OpenGL UI

With the option to use OpenGL based UI components, Fuse is the only of the three platforms that offer a reliable “write once, run everywhere” approach where designers can control responsive layout, look and feel down to points, pixels and percentages, keyframes and easing curves. See More

5 2

score 286 · Answer 14

B4X

Top Pro

A very active forum where you can find any issue you have, and quick answers to new ones

Top Con

Only for Windows

The IDE, while very handy, only runs on Windows. If you want to code on Mac or Linux, you have to install it on a virtual machine. But you can debug your app by running it on the target OS. See More

Top Pro

A highly motivated program author who is very active in the forums

Erel Uziel is simply the most pro-active Soft-Creator/Forum Manager you will ever come across. If it has not yet been asked & answered, just ask and you will be answered withing minutes, and thanks to it being a trully international forum, this is achieved 24h/7d. See More

Top Con

Lack of B4W real Web app

Erel needs to make a real Web app designer. See More

Top Pro

Create easy, fast cross-platform views with less code

B4XUI custom views are designed, by Erel and other forum members, exactly with this in mind; custom views that act and feel exactly the same no matter what platform you target. See More

Top Con

Java-dependent Desktop Development

Top Pro

Very easy to use and powerful for IoT

Support for Bluetooth/BLE, MQTT, TCP/UDP, Serial, NFC, Websockets, HTTP/2 across platforms makes it the ideal tool for IoT projects. See More

Top Con

The documentation and examples and tutorials are not up to date

Top Pro

Live code swapping

A huge productivity boost when you can run your apps on the devices and make code changes real time without needing to recompile. See More

Top Pro

Powerful general purpose programming tool

As mentioned in its website, "With B4X, anyone who wants to, can develop real-world solutions." See More

Top Pro

No complexities compared with other tools

No need to learn JAVA, C+, PHP, or any other complementary languages in order to achieve exactly what you need. See More

Top Pro

The best all round

Produces highly optimised end results. Easy to use and quick to learn. When you know how to produce an Android app you near enough know how to produce an IOS app. The fact that there are subtle differences between writing for different platforms is a huge plus - those differences help optimise your code and they're really not difficult to wrap your head round. See More

Top Pro

Erel has much passion for his tool

The speed of answer topics is amazing. See More

Top Pro

Many informative video tutorials

The tutorials help beginners as well as more experienced programmers grasping important concepts. See More

Top Pro

Many code examples of fully working apps for free

The Forum is filled with many code examples of fully working apps for free. Code snippets, animation, different type of views etc. can be easily downloaded and used in your own app. See More

Top Pro

Large user community

Over the years it has built up a very active user community that is very involved in the evolution of B4X. In their forums you can find any answer to your questions, and if it is not there, they will answer you. See More

Top Pro

Tightly integrated framework

Top Pro

RAD

VERY Rapid Application Development, with tons of pro features. See More

Top Pro

Almost everything is free and complete

Except the IDE for iOS. Even so it's very cheap. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web, Raspberry Pi, Arduino

License:Apache License 2.0

Languages:B4X

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac (via VM), Linux (via VM), Web

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286 7

score 21 · Answer 15

Tizen

Top Con

Based on EFL libraries

A perfect experience of a developer working with EFL: https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened See More

Top Pro

Open source

Some parts of the OS are open source. See More

Top Con

Worst Code Base

Amihai Neiderman, a Kaspersky Labs researcher said, “It may be the worst code I’ve ever seen, Everything you can do wrong there, they do it. You can see that nobody with any understanding of security looked at this code or wrote it.” See More

Top Pro

Fast

Top Con

Lack of apps

Top Pro

HTML5-based

Top Con

Aesthetically unappealing

Top Con

Lack of security

With the recent discoveries of a number of security flaws, tizen is no longer a secure OS that it advertises. See More

Specs

License:proprietary

Package Manager:RPM Package Manager

OS Family:GNU+Linux

Programming Language:HTML5, C, C++, JavaScript/TypeScript, C# Xamarin

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21 5

score 1 · Answer 16

Telerik AppBuilder

Top Pro

Plugins for popular IDEs

Telerik provides Visual Studio and Sublime Text plugins for the AppBuilder. See More

Top Con

Young project with a small community

AppBuilder is a young project that's been fairly slow to gain popularity. This means the community is rather small, so there is a limited amount of 3rd party learning resources available. There is a forum, but it's not very active. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with Apache Cordova

AppBuilder offers a fast way to import Cordova plugins such as the camera. See More

1 0

score 0 · Answer 17

Intel's App Framework

Top Pro

Lightweight

Intel's App Framework is built to be lightweight and fast. See More

Top Con

Weak documentation

The documentation for the app framework is fairly basic, with a limited number of descriptions/explanations given. See More

Top Pro

Supports variety of platforms

Intel's App Framework allows you to build apps for just about any platform. iOS, Android, Windows 8, Tizen, Amazon, Nook, Chrome & Firefox. See More

0 0