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What are the best frameworks for developing Android apps with JavaScript?

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8 Options Considered

8 Options ConsideredPriceLast Updated
Ionic Framework
Apr 11, 2018
NativeScript
Mar 6, 2018
React Native
Mar 25, 2018
PhoneGap
Apr 19, 2018
Apache Cordova
Aug 26, 2016
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Ionic Framework

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Laura Kyle
Top Pro

Large, friendly and active community

•••
Ionic Framework is currently one of the most popular frameworks for hybrid mobile app development. This has resulted in a very large community of active users who contribute to the community by writing tutorials and answering questions.
Laura Kyle
Top Pro

Free and open source

•••
Ionic is free to use and open source, resulting in an active and helpful community of users and contributors.
Endi Sukaj
Matheus Cardoso
Top Pro

Fast prototyping

•••
It is easy to take an idea from scratch and make it happen with Ionic, using the framework itself or using Ionic Creator.
Laura Kyle
Top Con

Can be buggy

•••
Ionic is still a young framework (version 1.0 was released in May 2015). There are still some quirks and bugs in the framework to work out, which you can see a list of on their Github. However Ionic is under active development and bugs are generally addressed quickly.
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NativeScript

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Laura Kyle
Heinrich Göbl
Top Pro

Instant access to native environment

•••
No need to wait for bridges to new API developed by someone else. The concept behind NativeScript enables instant access to even brand new API or OS versions.
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React Native

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Paolo
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.
Paolo
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.
Paolo
Top Pro

More predictable control of the state

•••
The one way data flow, makes it more predictable and easy to control.
Paolo
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.
Paolo
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.
Paolo
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.
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PhoneGap

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Apache Cordova

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Sencha Touch

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Laura Kyle
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.
Laura Kyle
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.
Laura Kyle
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.
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Onsen UI 2

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Nguyen Thanh
Top Pro

Easy development with Monaca IDE

•••
Donny Lai
Top Pro

Work with Angular 1, Angular 2, and React

•••
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Trigger.io

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32 Community Recommendations

Bernardin Ćenan
Javier Miguel
Heinrich Göbl
romakapadiya
Francis Brunelle
Matheus Cardoso
Vadim Pashkov
David Rodenko
Bryan
Paolo
Ferhat Değirmenci
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IndependentSjofn
IndependentSjofn
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NativeScript
Recommended 3 months ago
Truly native
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