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

Ionic vs Materialize

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Ionic
Ionic
Stacks9.5K
Followers8.6K
Votes1.8K
Materialize
Materialize
Stacks698
Followers1.2K
Votes557
GitHub Stars39.1K
Forks4.7K

Ionic vs Materialize: What are the differences?

Developers describe Ionic as "A beautiful front-end framework for developing cross-platform apps with web technologies like Angular and React". 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. On the other hand, Materialize is detailed as "A modern responsive front-end framework based on Material Design". A CSS Framework based on material design.

Ionic and Materialize are primarily classified as "Cross-Platform Mobile Development" and "Front-End Frameworks" tools respectively.

Some of the features offered by Ionic are:

  • Performance obsessed
  • Utilizes Angular and React
  • Native focused

On the other hand, Materialize provides the following key features:

  • Speeds up development
  • User Experience Focused
  • Easy to work with

"Allows for rapid prototyping", "Hybrid mobile" and "It's angularjs" are the key factors why developers consider Ionic; whereas "Google material design", "Responsive" and "Easy to use" are the primary reasons why Materialize is favored.

Ionic and Materialize are both open source tools. It seems that Ionic with 38.4K GitHub stars and 13.1K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Materialize with 36K GitHub stars and 4.79K GitHub forks.

Sellsuki, Edify, and eTobb are some of the popular companies that use Ionic, whereas Materialize is used by The3ballsoft, GeoLytix, and Avhana Health. Ionic has a broader approval, being mentioned in 392 company stacks & 350 developers stacks; compared to Materialize, which is listed in 46 company stacks and 53 developer stacks.

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Advice on Ionic, Materialize

Anonymous
Anonymous

CEO at ME!

Jun 7, 2020

Decided

While with Ionic it is possible to make mobile applications with only web technologies, Flutter is more performant and is easy to use if you are willing to learn Dart, which is a fun language. Plus, it has awesome documentation and, while its ecosystem isn't near as big as JavaScript's is, it has a good package manager called Pub and its packages are generally high quality.

403k views403k
Comments
Thuan
Thuan

FE Lead at SOLID ENGINEER

Jun 16, 2020

Decided
  • Javascripts is the most populated language in the world.
  • Easy to learn & deployed production
  • Fast development
  • Strong community
  • Completed Documents
  • Native performance with lower RAM used.
  • Easy to handle native issues by using native code like Java / Objective C
  • Powered by Facebook.
666k views666k
Comments
Melly
Melly

Dec 19, 2019

Needs advice

Hi, we are an early startup (with an iPOC prototype) but need to get started on our MVP, and our tech developers in India recommended a hybrid, and they use Ionic, then we spoke with a software company in the US and he recommended Flutter or React Native. Any advice or input for us on the differences between these? Our app will need Bluetooth GPS for "near me" and social media sharing reviews capability, and also link on the backend with businesses. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

540k views540k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Ionic
Ionic
Materialize
Materialize

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.

A CSS Framework based on material design.

Performance obsessed;Utilizes Angular and React;Native focused;Beautifully designed;Based on Web Components;
Speeds up development;User Experience Focused;Easy to work with
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
39.1K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
4.7K
Stacks
9.5K
Stacks
698
Followers
8.6K
Followers
1.2K
Votes
1.8K
Votes
557
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
  • 102
    Google material design
  • 74
    Easy to use
  • 74
    Responsive
  • 54
    Modern looks
  • 48
    Open source
Cons
  • 7
    Mobile errors
  • 6
    Poor Grid System
  • 2
    Unmaintained

What are some alternatives to Ionic, Materialize?

Bootstrap

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

Flutter

Flutter

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

React Native

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

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.

Foundation

Foundation

Foundation is the most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world. You can quickly prototype and build sites or apps that work on any kind of device with Foundation, which includes layout constructs (like a fully responsive grid), elements and best practices.

Semantic UI

Semantic UI

Semantic empowers designers and developers by creating a shared vocabulary for UI.

Material Design for Angular

Material Design for Angular

Material Design is a specification for a unified system of visual, motion, and interaction design that adapts across different devices. Our goal is to deliver a lean, lightweight set of AngularJS-native UI elements that implement the material design system for use in Angular SPAs.

NativeScript

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.

Material-UI

Material-UI

Material UI is a library of React UI components that implements Google's Material Design.

Blazor

Blazor

Blazor is a .NET web framework that runs in any browser. You author Blazor apps using C#/Razor and HTML.

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