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I want to develop a hybrid mobile application and I want to know what is the difference between Cordova and ionic?

Artjom B.
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Amazoom
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6 Answers6

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  • Apache Cordova is a community project, letting you build mobile apps for various mobile platforms with one unique code base, as you develop your app with web technologies (HTML5, Javascript and CSS3) instead of relying on platform-specific (native) APIs like those of Android, iOS, or Windows Phone.
  • Phonegap is a version of Cordova but it's an Adobe product.
  • Ionic Framework is a set of css classes and a library of Javascript directives and modules, built on top of Cordova, with AngularJS.

Here is an extract from Apache Cordova Wikipedia page, but that is true for PhoneGap and Ionic as well:

The resulting applications are said to be hybrid, meaning that they are neither truly native mobile application (because all layout rendering is done via Web views instead of the platform's native UI framework) nor purely Web-based (because they are not just Web apps, but are packaged as apps for distribution and have access to native device APIs).

All three projects are free and open-source.

arainone
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    This accepted answer should be updated since now Angular is not the only supported JavaScript framework by Ionic. And I read it is possible to use Ionic without framework. So a comparison between Cordova and Ionic without framework could be useful also. By the way, Adobe wrote "we are announcing the end of development for PhoneGap": https://blog.phonegap.com/update-for-customers-using-phonegap-and-phonegap-build-cc701c77502c – baptx Mar 23 '21 at 12:05
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PhoneGap is the base, cordova is from Apache which acquired Phonegap. They both are nearly the same now, and ionic is a framework to enhance frontend UI

Ashwin G
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    "acquired Phonegap" is misleading. Phonegap as a product is owned by Adobe; the Phonegap code was made open source as "Cordvoa". From wikipedia: "Adobe Systems purchased Nitobi in 2011, rebranded it as PhoneGap, and later released an open-source version of the software called Apache Cordova" – Luke Oct 19 '20 at 13:59
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  • Ionic vs Cordova: First of all I would recommend starting with Ionic because its better to have with some UI widgets to start with rather than a blank screen (Cordova) and to start from scratch.
  • Hybrid Apps: These are not Native apps but rather use WebViews (browser built-in your app) to display your views (coded in HTML) and fetch user input and then use JavaScript (or Angular etc) to process them. Although they are not native but they have access to some of the Native APIs i.e. to take picture using camera, record video/audio etc.
  • Suggestion: If you want to develop native apps using a single code base use React Native, which uses HTML, JSX (JavaScript + XML) and CSS.
Sajid2405
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ionic framework is an open source sdk tools which consists of css templates and javascript libraries mainly angularjs using its directives we write code. But whereas Apsche Cordova is a plattform which acts as an interface for our output view of an application.

Boreddy Raghu
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I think, Cordova is an open source mobile development framework. It is used by the developers for building cross-platform mobile applications. It has a unique code base. Cordova can be developed with the help of HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS.

Ionic is a framework which is a set of CSS classes and JavaScript library. It is built on the top of Cordova with the help of AngularJS.

PhoneGap is an Adobe product. It is powered by Cordova

Margotka000
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PHP Scots
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This is an answer I found useful, taken from Quora:

Cordova is a framework that gives you Javascript bindings to invoke native functionality on a mobile device. Each functionality is accessed using a plugin system and so for a typical project there would be multiple plugins. These can be installed using CLI. Ionic provides a JS, HTML and CSS components beautifully designed for the web and leverages Cordova's awesome plugins for accessing device functionalities. Thus without Cordova, you cannot access any device specific features in Ionic.

If you have a mobile application that relies only on web APIs, then theoretically you need to have only Ionic to develop an app.

user2340939
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