Hybrid JavaScript Mobile Development - Apache Cordova vs Capacitor with Ionic vs NativeScript vs React Native
Asked 07 September, 2021
Viewed 2.8K times
  • 56
Votes

First of all, hope so this question is not too broad. Coming from front-end background I'm thinking to start learning one of JavaScript-related frameworks for mobile development. And here comes the first question, shall I go with Apache Cordova or Capacitor? The first on I've used for Phaser (HTML5) Game Development as a hobby project, not the best experience to be honest. I could feel why Apache Cordova is one of the most hated technologies according to Stack Overflow annual reports.

Then comes the second question, shall I go with Ionic, NativeScript or React Native? React is the only one front-end framework from the "big 3" which I don't feel comfortable so far. My experience with Angular and Vue.js are rather positive and would like to use any of these in my mobile apps projects as well, therfore I'm a bit biased into Ionic or NativeScript. On the other side, React Native has the most GitHub stars. I think there might be a reason for that.

Then the last one, can I combine any of: Apache Cordova/Capacitor with any of: Ionic/NativeScript/React Native or there are some things which makes easier to work for example a combination of Capacitor and Ionic? The same company does this, therefore I assume it should be relatively seamless combination.

Edit:

Last one - for making PWA from the same codebase of my mobile app I'm forced to use Ionic only?

3 Answer