We built the first version of our app with RN and it turned out a mess in a while. A lot of bugs along with poor performance out of the box for a fairly large app. Many things, that native platform has, cannot be done with existing solutions for RN. For instance, large titles on iOS are not fully implemented in any of existing navigations libraries. Also there's painfully slow JSON bridge and many other small, yet annoying things. On the other hand Flutter became a really powerful and easy-to-use tool. A bit of a learning curve, of course, because of Dart, but it worth learning. Flutter offers TONS of built-in features, no JSON-bridge, AOT compilation for iOS.

Aleksandr Filatov

Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · Dec 23, 2019 | 2 upvotes · 89.2K views

Shared insights

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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.

Pros of Apache Cordova

Pros of NativeScript

Pros of React Native

39
Lots of plugins
33
JavaScript
25
Great community
22
Easy Development
17
Easy to learn
14
Cross platform
6
Open Source
5
Lots of descendants; PhoneGap, Ionic, Intel XDA etc
5
Easy, fast, not buggy in my experience with my code
3
Rich HTML 5
3
Can use CSS3
2
Easy debugging
2
Rich css ui
2
Fast and hot reload
2
Need a light system
2
Use what you code in your browser
2
HTML, CSS and JS
1
One code base everywhere
1
Native Web Technologies
1
Without extra tooling needed

73
Access to the entire native api
46
Support for native ios and android libraries
45
Support for javascript libraries
45
Angular 2.0 support
43
Native ux and performance
36
Typescript support
34
Backed up by google and telerik
29
Css support
26
Cross-platform declarative ui and code
24
Fully open source under apache 2.0 license
11
Vuejs support
8
60fps performance
5
Powerful data visualization with native UI
5
VS Code integration
4
Cloud builds as part of Telerik PLatform
4
Angular, typescript and javascript support
4
No need for Mac to build iOS apps in Telerik Platform
4
Extended CLI support
3
On-device debugging
3
Extensibility
3
Truly Object-Oriented with Typescript
3
Easiest of all other frameworks
3
Backed by google
3
0 day support for new OS updates
3
Publishing modules to NPM
2
Access to entire native api
2
VueJS support
2
Svelte support
2
Powerfull mobile services as part of Telerik Platform
2
Live reload
2
Native ui with angular
2
Easy to learn
2
Vue.js support out of the box
2
Vue support
1
It works with Angular
1
Easy to use, support for almost all npm packages
1
Very small app size
1
Write once, use anywhere
1
Compile to Apple/Google Stores via CloudCompiler
1
HMR via webpack
1
Code reuse with your website
1
Rich ecosystem
1
Has CSS ;-)
1
Playground
1
Hot Reload

196
Learn once write everywhere
158
Cross platform
156
Javascript
114
Native ios components
65
Built by facebook
59
Easy to learn
43
Bridges me into ios development
39
No compile
38
It's just react
36
Declarative
19
Fast
12
Livereload
11
Virtual Dom
10
Insanely fast develop / test cycle
9
Backed by Facebook
8
Great community
8
Easy setup
8
Native android components
8
It is free and open source
7
Highly customizable
6
Awesome
6
Great errors
6
Scalable
6
Win win solution of hybrid app
6
Everything component
5
Not dependent on anything such as Angular
5
Simple
4
Awesome, easy starting from scratch
4
OTA update
3
Easy to use
3
As good as Native without any performance concerns
2
Hot reload
2
Over the air update (Flutter lacks)
2
'It's just react'
2
Web development meets Mobile development
2
Many salary
2
Can be incrementally added to existing native apps
0
Ful

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Cons of Apache Cordova

Cons of NativeScript

Cons of React Native

2
No native performance
1
Hard to install
0
Hard to install

5
Lack of promotion
1
Slower Performance compared to competitors

21
Javascript
14
Built by facebook
8
Cant use CSS
1
Some compenents not truly native

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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 NativeScript?

NativeScript enables developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Universal while sharing the application code across the platforms. When building the application UI, developers use our libraries, which abstract the differences between the native platforms.

What is 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.

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

Jobs that mention Apache Cordova, NativeScript, and React Native as a desired skillset

(Senior) Mobile Engineer (Flutter) - New Platform (f/m/d)

Delivery Hero SE

Germany City Berlin

View Job Details

Senior Mobile (Flutter) Engineer - New Platform (f/m/d)

Delivery Hero SE

Germany, Berlin

View Job Details

Senior Mobile (Flutter) Engineer - New Platform (f/m/d)

Delivery Hero SE

Germany, Berlin

View Job Details

See jobs for Apache Cordova

See jobs for NativeScript

See jobs for React Native

What companies use Apache Cordova?

What companies use NativeScript?

What companies use React Native?

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What tools integrate with Apache Cordova?

What tools integrate with NativeScript?

What tools integrate with React Native?

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What are some alternatives to Apache Cordova, NativeScript, and React Native?

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.

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.

Flutter

Flutter is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android.

See all alternatives

Interest over time

News about Apache Cordova

More news

News about NativeScript

The Next Chapter for NativeScript: nStudio

(www.nativescript.org)

Jun 1, 2020

Migration of NativeScript Cloud Builds to Circle CI

(www.nativescript.org)