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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Cross Platform Mobile Development
  5. Ionic vs Java

Ionic vs Java

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Ionic
Ionic
Stacks9.5K
Followers8.6K
Votes1.8K
Java
Java
Stacks148.0K
Followers105.5K
Votes3.7K

Ionic vs Java: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Ionic and Java

1. Syntax: Ionic is based on web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, allowing developers to build mobile apps using familiar web development languages. On the other hand, Java is a general-purpose programming language that is commonly used for building different types of applications, including mobile apps and server-side applications.

2. Platform Compatibility: Ionic is primarily focused on developing cross-platform mobile apps that can run on both iOS and Android devices. It achieves this by using web technologies and wrapping the app within a WebView. In contrast, Java is a programming language used for building applications that can run on different platforms, including desktop, server, and mobile (through Android).

3. Performance: Java is a compiled language, which means that the code is translated into machine code before being executed, resulting in faster performance. Ionic, on the other hand, relies on a WebView to render the app, which can introduce additional overhead and result in slightly lower performance compared to natively developed apps.

4. Tooling and Ecosystem: Java has a mature ecosystem with a wide range of development tools, frameworks, and libraries. It is also supported by a large community of developers, which means that finding resources and getting help is relatively easier. Ionic, being based on web technologies, also benefits from the extensive web development ecosystem and tools, but it may not have the same level of support or as many specialized tools as Java.

5. Native Access: Java, particularly when used for Android development, provides developers with direct access to native features and APIs of the underlying platform, which allows for greater control and flexibility in mobile app development. Ionic, on the other hand, relies on plugins to access native features, which may introduce some limitations or performance overhead when compared to native development.

6. Learning Curve: Java is a widely adopted programming language with a steep learning curve. It requires understanding the language fundamentals, object-oriented programming concepts, and the Android framework for mobile app development. In comparison, Ionic makes use of web technologies that many developers are already familiar with, making it easier for web developers to transition into mobile app development.

In summary, the key differences between Ionic and Java are the syntax (web technologies vs. general-purpose programming language), platform compatibility (cross-platform vs. multiple platforms), performance (WebView vs. compiled language), tooling and ecosystem (web development vs. Java ecosystem), native access (plugins vs. direct access), and learning curve (web technology familiarity vs. steeper learning curve for Java).

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Advice on Ionic, Java

Erik
Erik

Chief Architect at LiveTiles

May 18, 2020

Decided

C# and .Net were obvious choices for us at LiveTiles given our investment in the Microsoft ecosystem. It enabled us to harness of the .Net framework to build ASP.Net MVC, WebAPI, and Serverless applications very easily. Coupled with the high productivity of Visual Studio, it's the native tongue of Microsoft technology.

614k views614k
Comments
Nick
Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k
Comments
Ido
Ido

Mar 6, 2020

Decided

When developing a new blockchain, we as a team chose Go lang over Java and other candidates, due to Go being (a) natively suited to concurrency - there are primitives in the language itself (goroutines, channels) that really help with reasoning about concurrency (b) super fast - build time, running, testing are all much faster that Java, this gives a far superior developer experience (c) shorter and stricter than Java - code is much shorter (less verbose), and there is usually one good way to do things, and even the code formatter that is bundled with Go is very opinionated - over a short time this makes reading other people's code far smoother than having to deal with different styles.

You should be aware that Go presently (v1.13) lacks Generics.

267k views267k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Ionic
Ionic
Java
Java

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.

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Performance obsessed;Utilizes Angular and React;Native focused;Beautifully designed;Based on Web Components;
-
Statistics
Stacks
9.5K
Stacks
148.0K
Followers
8.6K
Followers
105.5K
Votes
1.8K
Votes
3.7K
Pros & Cons
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
  • 608
    Great libraries
  • 446
    Widely used
  • 401
    Excellent tooling
  • 396
    Huge amount of documentation available
  • 334
    Large pool of developers available
Cons
  • 33
    Verbosity
  • 27
    NullpointerException
  • 17
    Nightmare to Write
  • 16
    Overcomplexity is praised in community culture
  • 12
    Boiler plate code
Integrations
No integrations available
Spring
Spring

What are some alternatives to Ionic, Java?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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