React Native vs Ionic: The Better Framework?

A discussion around the best cross-platform mobile app frameworks cannot conclude without the React Native vs Ionic debate. In our previous blog, we dug into Flutter vs React Native, and today, we will compare the latter with the Ionic framework. We will evaluate both frameworks based on the performance they offer, the user experience they deliver, and much more.

React Native vs Ionic: An Overview

React Native is an open-source JavaScript-based mobile app framework created by Facebook that helps build natively-rendered mobile apps for Android and iOS. The framework allows developers to create applications for multiple platforms using the same code base.

Speaking of Ionic, it is also an open-source hybrid app development framework that uses web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build applications. The framework offers tools and services for creating hybrid mobile, desktop, and progressive web apps, but primarily focuses on the appearance, feel, and UI.

React Native vs Ionic: Functionality

The functionality of React Native is based on a dynamic runtime approach while that of Ionic is based on WebView Wrapper.

The apps built with the former are written using JavaScript. This code communicates with multiple platforms through a JavaScript API that transfers the necessary data calls and functions to the native platform API. Both the APIs are connected via a bridge which is the reason why React native apps tend to work similarly to the native ones.

The latter is based on Cordova which relies on a WebView component, and this component uses a Webkit to render an HTML/CSS user interface. Cordova makes use of the JavaScript-native bridge to enable communication between the WebView application and the Native platform. This makes it possible for the framework to access native APIs and other device features such as Camera. 

React Native vs Ionic: Popularity

As per the developer survey 2020, a whopping 86% of web developers have used the Ionic’s tools and SDKs in the past year as compared to only 16% of developers who used React Native. Moreover, when it came to building PWAs, developers who used the Ionic framework are 72% more than the ones who used React Native (21%).

But as far as the Github rating is concerned, Ionic has over 45.3k Gitbub stars, 13.4k project forkings, and 285 version releases. On the other hand, React Native has 98k+ Github stars, 21.3k project forkings, and 368+ releases. Moreover, in the past few years, the satisfaction ratio of React Native is higher than Ionic, as the latter is relatively new and many are still unaware of its benefits and functionalities.

React Native vs Ionic: Securing Application Data

Both React Native and Ionic do a decent job as far as providing security against application vulnerabilities is concerned. Taking encryption as a factor, developers leverage the secure storage Cordova plugin to ensure encryption in Ionic. This is when they are working with iOS. For Android, a swipe or screen lock on the device is a must for this to work.

To ensure encryption in React Native, developers have to rely on third-party libraries such as React-native-keychain or React-native-secure-storage to store sensitive data locally.

React Native vs Ionic: Performance

React Native uses JavaScript to build native-like applications. Apps with this framework offer the look and feel of a native app and utilize the same building blocks that a native app does. The only difference is that React Native is cross-platform and utilizes JavaScript to wrap around these native building blocks. So, from the performance perspective, React Native does a pretty decent job.

Talking about Ionic, it adopts a hybrid approach and doesn’t utilize native capabilities. You may therefore encounter some performance issues when compared with Ionic. To access native features, it leverages the Cordova plugin. Though Ionic seems ideal to build elegant UI and faster development, it does carry some performance issues when compared to its counterpart.

React Native vs Ionic: Learning Curve

The core SDK of both React Native and Ionic has JavaScript in common. They aren’t similar though. The former has a basic flex layout that makes acquiring necessary components style look like a breeze. The sole limitation is you must be familiar with CSS first. Other things you might require learning encompass Axios for calling APIs, Flexbox, Redux with React, etc.

Coming to the latter, Ionic has an easy installation process, thanks to the npm commands that help install Cordova. What’s best about Ionic is that it has its own academy online school that offers courses on different levels to make learning and building much easier, efficient, and convenient.

React Native vs Ionic: Enterprise Compatability

Ionic has lately become one of the best frameworks for enterprises since it offers great support to build hybrid apps and PWAs. React Native has also been considered and adopted by many popular organizations like Airbnb, Wix but still the framework doesn’t get fully recommended yet for enterprises. So, you can say that Ionic has better enterprise compatibility compared to React Native.

React Native vs Ionic: Developer Convenience

For developers to work efficiently with React Native, they are required to have some prior knowledge and experience of ReactJS. Besides JavaScript, basic knowledge of native app development would also be required when it comes to developing hybrid react native apps.

Since the Ionic framework has a WebView-based hybrid development approach, the level of convenience is almost similar to one would experience in web development.

Final Call

There are multiple factors that you need to consider before you finalize which framework would be the best suited for your project. React Native can have an upper hand over Ionic in some cases, and vice-versa is also possible. Wondering what their development cost would be? Both the frameworks tend to be cost-effective and time-saving. But if we have to make a hard call between the two, Ionic is comparatively economical than React Native because the hybrid app made with the latter can run and function across platforms by just using a single codebase.

If you are still confused between the two, you can reach out to our experts here.