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

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27

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Sep 26, 2018

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8 Options Considered

Best frameworks for developing iOS apps with JavaScript	Price	Last Updated
-- PhoneGap	-	Apr 25, 2018
-- NativeScript	-	Aug 6, 2018
-- Ionic Framework	-	Jun 18, 2017
-- React Native	-	Sep 26, 2018
-- Framework7	-	Sep 29, 2017

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score 3 · Answer 1

PhoneGap

pCloudy.com's Experience

i heard phonegap is the best for app development See More

score 4 · Answer 2

NativeScript

Top Pro

Native components

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

Speed

Top Pro

Works great with vue.js

See All

score 6 · Answer 3

Ionic Framework

Top Pro

Cordova plugins

Large quantity of plugins to access native APIs without code nothing in native language. See More

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. See More

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. See More

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. See More

See All

score 6 · Answer 4

React Native

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

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

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

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

More predictable control of the state

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

See All

score 4 · Answer 5

Framework7

Top Pro

Really fast

score 1 · Answer 6

zeep

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score 2 · Answer 7

Apache Cordova

Top Con

It doesn't seem to be as cross platform compatible as it claims to be

Top Pro

It allows you to utilize the technologies that you're most comfortable using

Curiosity's Experience

I've used Apache Cordova to act as a rapper for several esoteric apps that I offer through the Apple Store. See More

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Answer 8

Trigger.io

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8 Options Considered

My Recommendation for PhoneGap

My Recommendation for PhoneGap

My Recommendation for NativeScript

My Recommendation for NativeScript

Native components

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

Speed

Works great with vue.js

My Recommendation for Ionic Framework

My Recommendation for Ionic Framework

Cordova plugins

Can be buggy

Large, friendly and active community

Free and open source

My Recommendation for React Native

My Recommendation for React Native

Large, supportive community

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

Allows you to develop native apps

Steep learning curve

More predictable control of the state

Backed by Facebook

My Recommendation for Framework7

My Recommendation for Framework7

Really fast

My Recommendation for zeep

My Recommendation for zeep

My Recommendation for Apache Cordova

My Recommendation for Apache Cordova

It doesn't seem to be as cross platform compatible as it claims to be

It allows you to utilize the technologies that you're most comfortable using

My Recommendation for Trigger.io

My Recommendation for Trigger.io

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