Apache Cordova vs Ionic vs Xamarin: What are the differences?

**Key Differences between Apache Cordova, Ionic, and Xamarin**

Apache Cordova, Ionic, and Xamarin are popular platforms for building cross-platform mobile applications, but they differ in various aspects that impact development and performance.

1. **Language and Framework**: Apache Cordova uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for app development, Ionic is built on top of Cordova and uses Angular for the framework, while Xamarin uses C# and .NET framework.
   
2. **User Interface**: Ionic offers a set of pre-built components and UI elements for creating visually appealing interfaces, while Apache Cordova and Xamarin require more customization for UI design.

3. **Performance**: Xamarin generally provides better performance as it compiles down to native code, while Apache Cordova and Ionic rely on web technologies, which can affect performance. 

4. **Community and Ecosystem**: Ionic has a large community and a rich ecosystem of plugins and tools, while Apache Cordova and Xamarin also have strong communities but with different levels of support.

5. **Native Features Support**: Xamarin offers the most robust support for native features and APIs of the underlying platforms, followed by Ionic, while Apache Cordova may require additional plugins for accessing diverse native functionalities.

6. **Cost**: Xamarin is a paid platform with a free trial, while Apache Cordova and Ionic are open-source and free to use, which can be a determining factor for small projects or budget-constrained developers.

In Summary, Apache Cordova, Ionic, and Xamarin differ in language and framework, UI capabilities, performance, community support, native features access, and cost considerations for app development.

We are developing an AWS IoT app for large boats. The IoT devices have sensors all over the boat for engine oil pressure, position, water depth, fuel level, crew location, etc. When the boat has internet, we interact with AWS cloud using lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. When the boat is offshore, the captain and crew still need normal and emergency alerts and real-time sensor information. The crew might have an Android or IoS phone or a Windows or macOS PC to receive alerts and interact with sensors. We may use the AWS GreenGrasss edge computing solution and either MQTT or HTML for that function.

Question: We want to develop a cross-platform client to run on Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, and possibly Linux. We are primarily Python programmers, so PyQt or Kivy are options for us, but we have heard good things about React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, and others. We think an AWS Greengrass core on an RPI4 could communicate to the client with MQTT or a local webserver with a client web interface.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Xamarin	Ionic	Apache Cordova
Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.	Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript.	Apache Cordova is a set of device APIs that allow a mobile app developer to access native device function such as the camera or accelerometer from JavaScript. Combined with a UI framework such as jQuery Mobile or Dojo Mobile or Sencha Touch, this allows a smartphone app to be developed with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Cross-platform development- Thinking about supporting iOS, Android, Mac and Windows? Xamarin allows you to write it all in C#.;Reuse existing code- Use your favorite .NET libraries in Xamarin apps. Easily use third-party native libraries and frameworks.; Discover as you type- Explore APIs as you type with code autocompletion.;Visual Studio or Xamarin Studio- Create, build, debug, and deploy apps in Visual Studio. Or use Xamarin Studio, a fully-featured IDE that is built for mobile app development.;Native UI, Native Performance- Xamarin delivers high performance compiled code with full access to all the native APIs so you can create native apps with device-specific experiences.; Point and Click UI Design- Xamarin provides a world class Android UI designer. Use Apple Xcode UI designer to create interfaces and Storyboards that automatically sync with your Xamarin.iOS project.	Performance obsessed;Utilizes Angular and React;Native focused;Beautifully designed;Based on Web Components;	Cross-platform (CLI) workflow;Platform-centered workflow;Hundreds of plugins
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 955
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 345
Stacks 1.3K	Stacks 9.6K	Stacks 704
Followers 1.5K	Followers 8.6K	Followers 892
Votes 785	Votes 1.8K	Votes 218
Pros & Cons
Pros 121 Power of c# on mobile devices 81 Native performance 79 Native apps with native ui controls 73 No javascript - truely compiled code 67 Sharing more than 90% of code over all platforms Cons 9 Build times 5 Visual Studio 4 Price 3 Complexity 3 Scalability	Pros 248 Allows for rapid prototyping 228 Hybrid mobile 208 It's angularjs 186 Free 179 It's javascript, html, and css Cons 20 Not suitable for high performance or UI intensive apps 15 Not meant for game development 2 Not a native app	Pros 48 Lots of plugins 35 JavaScript 26 Great community 25 Easy Development 18 Easy to learn Cons 2 No native performance 1 Hard to install 0 Hard to install

Apache Cordova vs Ionic vs Xamarin

Overview

Apache Cordova vs Ionic vs Xamarin: What are the differences?

Advice on Xamarin, Ionic, Apache Cordova

Detailed Comparison

What are some alternatives to Xamarin, Ionic, Apache Cordova?

Flutter

React Native

NativeScript

Framework7

Qt

PhoneGap

Expo

Vue Native

Shoutem UI

Sencha Touch

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Flyway vs Liquibase