When comparing Ionic Framework vs Codename One, the Slant community recommends Ionic Framework for most people. In the question“What are the best frameworks for developing cross-platform mobile apps?” Ionic Framework is ranked 5th while Codename One is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Ionic Framework is:
Large quantity of plugins to access native APIs without code nothing in native language.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Cordova plugins
Large quantity of plugins to access native APIs without code nothing in native language.
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.
Pro Free and open source
Ionic is free to use and open source, resulting in an active and helpful community of users and contributors.
Pro High performance
Pro Open source
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.
Pro Java 8 support
Pro Works with all IDEs
Works with NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc.
Pro Multi-platform development environments (via build server)
You can even use Linux desktops to build native iOS apps, no need for a Mac.
Pro Vibrant & helpful community
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.
Cons
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.