Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Apache Cordova

704
892
+ 1
218
Mithril

88
79
+ 1
86
Add tool

Apache Cordova vs Mithril: What are the differences?

<Apache Cordova vs Mithril>

1. **Architecture**: Apache Cordova is a platform for building native mobile applications using web technologies, while Mithril is a modern client-side JavaScript framework for building single-page applications.
2. **Build Tools**: Apache Cordova requires additional build tools and setup for compiling and packaging mobile applications for different platforms, whereas Mithril provides a more streamlined development experience with built-in tools for creating SPAs.
3. **Community Support**: Apache Cordova has a larger and more established community with extensive documentation and plugins available for integrating native device functionalities, while Mithril has a smaller but active community that focuses on maintaining the framework with regular updates and improvements.
4. **Performance**: Mithril is known for its lightweight and efficient virtual DOM implementation, resulting in fast rendering and updates, whereas Apache Cordova can sometimes suffer from performance issues due to the overhead of bridging web code with native APIs.
5. **Learning Curve**: Mithril has a steeper learning curve compared to Apache Cordova, especially for developers new to functional programming paradigms and virtual DOM concepts, while Apache Cordova offers a more familiar development approach for web developers transitioning to mobile app development.
6. **Supported Platforms**: Apache Cordova supports a wide range of mobile platforms including iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, as well as desktop platforms like Windows, macOS, and Linux, while Mithril primarily focuses on web browsers and does not offer built-in support for native mobile platforms.

In Summary, Apache Cordova and Mithril differ in their architecture, build tools, community support, performance, learning curve, and supported platforms, catering to different needs in mobile and web application development. 
Decisions about Apache Cordova and Mithril
Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 2 upvotes · 426.9K views

I've done some Hybrid Mobile apps with both technologies Apache Cordova and React Native and described my experience in my blog.

In a few words, I would suggest to use each technology in accordance what what is your current code base and what do you want to achieve.

React Native is a great option if you need that extra edge in performance with multi-threading and native UI rendering. Or you already have a web app based on React which you want to port to mobile.

On the other hand, if you have an existing web application code and you want to reuse some or all, including the ability to use web third-party libraries, then Cordova is the best option.

See more
Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 2 upvotes · 118.4K views
What is Proguard?

ProGuard is the most popular optimizer for Java bytecode. It makes your Java and Android applications up to 90% smaller and up to 20% faster. ProGuard also provides minimal protection against reverse engineering by obfuscating the names of classes, fields and methods.

How to use it in Cordova app?

I didn't find any plugins for it. So I've implemented it by myself and shared it on GitHub.

Feel free to use!

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of Apache Cordova
Pros of Mithril
  • 48
    Lots of plugins
  • 35
    JavaScript
  • 26
    Great community
  • 25
    Easy Development
  • 18
    Easy to learn
  • 15
    Cross platform
  • 7
    Open Source
  • 6
    Easy, fast, not buggy in my experience with my code
  • 6
    Lots of descendants; PhoneGap, Ionic, Intel XDA etc
  • 4
    Can use CSS3
  • 4
    Rich HTML 5
  • 4
    Easy debugging
  • 3
    HTML, CSS and JS
  • 3
    Fast and hot reload
  • 3
    Rich css ui
  • 3
    Use what you code in your browser
  • 2
    Need a light system
  • 2
    Native Web Technologies
  • 2
    Without extra tooling needed
  • 2
    One code base everywhere
  • 16
    Lightweight
  • 12
    Faster than React
  • 10
    Pure JavaScript
  • 10
    Virtual Dom
  • 8
    Robust
  • 7
    Unopinionated
  • 7
    Works with ES6
  • 6
    Very active development
  • 5
    Intelligent auto-redrawing system
  • 3
    Flux compatible
  • 2
    Small Learning Curve

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Apache Cordova
Cons of Mithril
  • 2
    No native performance
  • 1
    Hard to install
  • 0
    Hard to install
  • 1
    Virtual Dom

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

- No public GitHub repository available -

What is Apache Cordova?

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.

What is Mithril?

Mithril is around 12kb gzipped thanks to its small, focused, API. It provides a templating engine with a virtual DOM diff implementation for performant rendering, utilities for high-level modelling via functional composition, as well as support for routing and componentization.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Apache Cordova?
What companies use Mithril?
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Apache Cordova?
What tools integrate with Mithril?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

Vue.jsSpring BootUnity+7
2
1324
What are some alternatives to Apache Cordova and Mithril?
Xamarin
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.
PhoneGap
PhoneGap is a web platform that exposes native mobile device apis and data to JavaScript. PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova. PhoneGap allows you to use standard web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development, avoiding each mobile platforms' native development language. Applications execute within wrappers targeted to each platform, and rely on standards-compliant API bindings to access each device's sensors, data, and network status.
React Native
React Native enables you to build world-class application experiences on native platforms using a consistent developer experience based on JavaScript and React. The focus of React Native is on developer efficiency across all the platforms you care about - learn once, write anywhere. Facebook uses React Native in multiple production apps and will continue investing in React Native.
Electron
With Electron, creating a desktop application for your company or idea is easy. Initially developed for GitHub's Atom editor, Electron has since been used to create applications by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, and Docker. The Electron framework lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on io.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor.
Ionic
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.
See all alternatives