Electron vs PhoneGap

Overview

PhoneGap

Stacks578

Followers685

Votes94

GitHub Stars4.0K

Forks889

Electron

Stacks11.6K

Followers10.0K

Votes148

Electron vs PhoneGap: What are the differences?

Introduction:

This markdown code provides a comparison between Electron and PhoneGap, focusing on their key differences.

Development Environment: Electron primarily uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build cross-platform desktop applications. On the other hand, PhoneGap utilizes web technologies to create hybrid mobile applications that can be deployed across various platforms.
Native Capabilities: Electron allows direct access to native operating system functionalities using Node.js, enabling developers to create applications with more advanced features. PhoneGap, on the other hand, relies on web views and plugins to access native capabilities, resulting in a slightly limited range of functionality compared to Electron.
Deployment and Distribution: Electron applications are typically packaged as standalone executables for each platform, enabling easy distribution and installation. In contrast, PhoneGap applications are wrapped in a native shell and run within a WebView, which requires installation of the PhoneGap framework on target devices.
Performance: Electron applications have generally better performance as they run natively on the user's device, leveraging the resources efficiently. PhoneGap applications, being hybrid apps, rely on WebView and might suffer from performance issues due to the additional layer between the app and the operating system.
UI/UX Design: Electron allows developers to create highly customized and native-like user interfaces, providing a more seamless experience for desktop users. PhoneGap, while also capable of creating visually appealing interfaces, might feel less native on certain platforms due to the nature of web technologies used.
Supported Platforms: Electron mainly targets desktop platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, enabling developers to create cross-platform apps specifically tailored for desktop environments. PhoneGap, on the other hand, is designed to target a wide range of mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and more.

In Summary, Electron focuses on developing cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies, while PhoneGap specializes in creating hybrid mobile applications with access to native functionalities, wrapped in a WebView.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on PhoneGap, Electron

Ru_Co

Sep 9, 2020

Review

Hi Manish,

Well between those 2 options (Kotlin and Flutter), Flutter would be the only one that would allow you to make your app for both Apple and Android. Kotlin is for Android only. But there are other crossplatform development frameworks besides Flutter. Which one is the best for you would depend on the app you want to create and your current expertises and preferences. I've marked a few alternatives in my answer.

126 views126

Comments

Aleksandr

Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft at Microsoft-365

Dec 23, 2019

Review

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!

119k views119k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

PhoneGap	Electron
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.	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.
Android;Blackberry;iOS;Windows Phone;Windows8	Use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Chromium and Node.js to build your app.;Electron is open source; maintained by GitHub and an active community.;Electron apps build and run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.;Automatic updates;Crash reporting;Windows installers;Debugging & profiling;Native menus & notifications
Statistics
GitHub Stars 4.0K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 889	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 578	Stacks 11.6K
Followers 685	Followers 10.0K
Votes 94	Votes 148
Pros & Cons
Pros 46 Javascript 13 Backed by Adobe 11 Free 9 Easy and developer friendly 6 Support more platforms Cons 2 Never as good as a native app 1 Poor user experience 1 Created for web pages, not for complex Apps 1 Hard to see 1 Not build for high performance	Pros 69 Easy to make rich cross platform desktop applications 53 Open source 14 Great looking apps such as Slack and Visual Studio Code 8 Because it's cross platform 4 Use Node.js in the Main Process Cons 19 Uses a lot of memory 8 User experience never as good as a native app 4 Does not native 4 No proper documentation 1 Each app needs to install a new chromium + nodejs

What are some alternatives to PhoneGap, Electron?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Framework7

It is a free and open source mobile HTML framework to develop hybrid mobile apps or web apps with iOS native look and feel. All you need to make it work is a simple HTML layout and attached framework's CSS and JS files.

Qt

Qt, a leading cross-platform application and UI framework. With Qt, you can develop applications once and deploy to leading desktop, embedded & mobile targets.

Expo

It is a framework and a platform for universal React applications. It is a set of tools and services built around React Native and native platforms that help you develop, build, deploy, and quickly iterate on iOS, Android, and web apps.

Vue Native

Vue Native is a mobile framework to build truly native mobile app using Vue.js. Its is designed to connect React Native and Vue.js. Vue Native is a wrapper around React Native APIs, which allows you to use Vue.js and compose rich mobile User Interface.

Related Comparisons

Electron vs PhoneGap: What are the differences?

Introduction:

This markdown code provides a comparison between Electron and PhoneGap, focusing on their key differences.

Development Environment: Electron primarily uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build cross-platform desktop applications. On the other hand, PhoneGap utilizes web technologies to create hybrid mobile applications that can be deployed across various platforms.
Native Capabilities: Electron allows direct access to native operating system functionalities using Node.js, enabling developers to create applications with more advanced features. PhoneGap, on the other hand, relies on web views and plugins to access native capabilities, resulting in a slightly limited range of functionality compared to Electron.
Deployment and Distribution: Electron applications are typically packaged as standalone executables for each platform, enabling easy distribution and installation. In contrast, PhoneGap applications are wrapped in a native shell and run within a WebView, which requires installation of the PhoneGap framework on target devices.
Performance: Electron applications have generally better performance as they run natively on the user's device, leveraging the resources efficiently. PhoneGap applications, being hybrid apps, rely on WebView and might suffer from performance issues due to the additional layer between the app and the operating system.
UI/UX Design: Electron allows developers to create highly customized and native-like user interfaces, providing a more seamless experience for desktop users. PhoneGap, while also capable of creating visually appealing interfaces, might feel less native on certain platforms due to the nature of web technologies used.
Supported Platforms: Electron mainly targets desktop platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, enabling developers to create cross-platform apps specifically tailored for desktop environments. PhoneGap, on the other hand, is designed to target a wide range of mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and more.

Electron vs PhoneGap

Overview