Yes, you read it correctly. We are speaking about the Native Cross-platform Mobile App Development. Now, you do not need to bang your head in determining whether to opt for Native or for cross-platform mobile app development. What you need is a consolidation of both in one mobile app offering duel benefits.

1. IONIC VS. REACT NATIVE – WHICH
FRAMEWORK IS BETTER FOR CROSS-
PLATFORM MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT?
Yes, you read it correctly. We are speaking about the Native Cross-platform Mobile App
Development. Now, you do not need to bang your head in determining whether to opt for Native
or for cross-platform mobile app development. What you need is a consolidation of both in one
mobile app offering duel benefits.
In this blog, we will compare the top two cross-platform mobile app development frameworks –
React Native and Ionic. We will evaluate them on various specifications and try to find out
specialties, limitations, and scope of these frameworks.

2. Detailed Comparison: Ionic vs. React Native
Based on Language Stack
React Native – Engineered with JavaScript and React.JS
Facebook used JavaScript – one of the dominant and high-level dynamic programming
languages and merged it with the benefits of React.JS (Web Framework) to develop React
Native. Definitely an intelligent move. According to the latest Stack Overflow Survey, about
66.7 percent of developers are already using JavaScript in their work. Thus, it won’t be
troublesome to find a developer for developing React Native Apps as these developers will be
either skilled to start coding or will have a shorter learning curve.
One of the strongest points making React Native the widely used and widely preferred cross-
platform app development framework is because it allows developers to write modules in
Objective-C, Swift, or Java Language whenever they need. Additionally, due to the native
modules and libraries to React Native Apps, it becomes easier to handle computationally heavy
programs like image editing or video processing.

3. Ionic – Superset of JavaScript – TypeScript
The Ionic framework is developed using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript for writing and running
the application; however, it requires a Cordova wrapper to access the native features and native
platform controllers. The core of the Ionic framework is based on AngularJS a JavaScript
Framework and is written with SaaS in mind.
The main programing language of Ionic is TypeScript – recognized as a superset of JavaScript
complied to the plain JavaScript. The quality of the code in Ionic is dramatically increased due to
its inbuilt capability to identify and mitigate errors at the time of writing code. Remember, it is
optional to use TypeScript as you are able to build the application using simple JavaScript.
Based on the Performance and Running Code
React Native – Interpretation with the Native APIs
By interpreting code components directly to the native APIs, cross-platform mobile apps
developed using React Native achieve performance close to native applications. In addition to
that, it also makes it possible to use native iOS and Android modules written using Objective-C
and Java. However, these modules can’t be reused on more than one platform as they are
specifically designed to elevate performance in complicated operations like video editing and
image processing. Developers can utilize the rest of a codebase across platforms (about 80 to
90% of the code written in JavaScript is reusable). Nevertheless, developers have the option to
use native libraries if they intend to optimize app performance. Remember, in React Native JIT
Compilation is used for Android and for iOS, it interprets the JavaScript code.
Ionic – Rendering through Web Technologies
As Ionic uses web technologies for rendering purposes, it reduces the speed so the application
built with Ionic fails to mimic native-like app performance. Additionally, no use of native
components is possible in Ionic so native behavior can be recreated. Ionic Developers need a
native Wrapper Cordova for connecting the mobile app with the native APIs, so it could adapt
the behavior of the underlying operating system.
Fast testing and consistently running in a browser are probably the most elegant features of Ionic.
Nevertheless, many pre-made and pre-styled components help in streamlining the overall mobile
app development lifecycle. Ionic uses JIT compilation for Android and a default platform
browser – WKWebView for iOS. The bottom line, it is impossible for React Native to achieve
performance that could be achieved by the complex and rich applications developed using React
Native.

4. Based on GUI (Graphical User Interface)
React Native – Uses React.JS Libraries and Interacts with Native iOS/Android Controllers
React native is able to offer app users experience equivalent to native because of its modules
interacting directly with native Android and iOS controllers. In addition to that, the capability of
React Native to utilize React.JS Library with extensive UI components further helps in
streamlining the process of User Interface Development. Thus, React Native developers get to
work faster as they have access to a divergent bundle of UI components like buttons, modules,
and sliders.
Ionic – Cordova Helps in Imitating Native Behavior
Ionic renders everything through HTML, CSS without interacting with any of the native
controllers. However, it applied Cordova, which then helps in imitating the native-like mobile
behavior. Additionally, the components in AngularJS bundled together in the framework further
help Ionic in making it look like the native. The recent edition of Ionic comes with a pre-
embedded UI element that was absent before on the web but was available only with Native
SDKs on iOS and Android platforms.
Based on the Developer Community
React Native
React Native is the most starred framework on Github. It has 59.8 thousand stars. Recently,
StackOverflow technology overview confirmed that the React Native is the most loved and
widely used cross-platform mobile app development framework. As the React Native developer
community is growing rapidly, the number of experienced engineers is also growing at the same
speed. By being a part of this growing global community, a React Native developer can easily

5. find answers to his questions and can easily get access to a huge number of third-party libraries
created by the community members.
Ionic
The online Ionic community is growing steadily since it has been launched and the 2017 Ionic
Developer Survey exemplifies that about 80% of the developers in the community are
experienced. A dedicated Q&A forum is the specialty of the Ionic community that helps new
developers to ask their queries as questions and in response get answers or advice. Apart from
that, it boasts a ‘Slack Channel’ representing Slack community for Ionic developers all over the
world to interact and collaborate.
Based on Price Structure
React Native
An Open Source project completely free and easily available for use along with all of its
libraries.
Ionic
Ionic is also an open source program at the time of registering and commencing development.
However, it has a companion platform called Ionic Pro offered in three variants – Developers,
Teams, and Businesses. The package is available at a monthly subscription ranging from $29 to
$199 and offers more days to track error history along with collaboration tools making it easier
to manage Ionic development taking place at a larger scale with numerous teams.
Final Thoughts
What framework you will be using to build your mobile app is a matter of personal preference
and convenience. Subsequently, your team, developers, and user requirements matter a lot while
taking a decision. Remember, both – React Native and Ionic have different specialties to do
different things, but believe it whatever they are doing, both frameworks do it perfectly right.
Of course, the best advice would be to test each of these frameworks and decide the appropriate
one suitable to develop your cross-platform mobile app. We are a leading cross-platform mobile
app development company with a team of highly experienced and skilled React Native and Ionic
developers ready to develop a cross-platform mobile app in your chosen framework.