While choosing the tool is secondary to other business decisions, it’s still an important decision that could make or break your project. Depending on the type of your app, it could have a big impact on the user experience you can deliver.
User Experience
React Native provides a truly native look and feel, as it uses native components for rendering. This results in smoother animations and transitions, making it ideal for performance-sensitive applications.
NativeScript also offers a native experience, allowing direct access to native APIs, which can enhance the app's responsiveness and overall user satisfaction.
Ionic, while capable of creating visually appealing applications, often resembles mobile websites more than native apps due to its reliance on WebView. This can lead to performance limitations in complex applications as well as user interfaces that look similarly to native ones but will feel slightly off.
Development Speed
Ionic is generally faster in development for developers familiar with web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), making it a preferred choice for rapid prototyping and simpler applications that aren’t performance critical.
React Native and NativeScript may require more time to master due to their more complex setups and the need for understanding native mobile development concepts.
Performance
React Native and NativeScript are designed for high performance with capabilities close to native applications. If you’re developing graphics-intensive, complex applications, then choose one of these two. You also want to choose either one if you prioritize smooth 60 frames per second.
Ionic, while effective for simpler apps, can struggle with performance under heavy loads or when utilizing extensive animations.
Community and Ecosystem
Both React Native and Ionic boast large communities, providing a wealth of resources, libraries, and third-party plugins that can expedite development.
NativeScript, although smaller in community size, still offers valuable resources and support, particularly for developers looking to leverage native capabilities.
In the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 9% of professional developers declared they’re using React Native, 2.8% declared they are using Ionic, and... NativeScript wasn’t there. According to the same survey, 56.5% of professional developers “admired” React Native, while 39.6% “admired” Ionic.
When it comes to popularity on GitHub, React Native’s repository has 119k stars, NativeScript’s repo has 24.2k stars while Ionic’s has more than double that with 51.1k.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
All three frameworks allow for cross-platform development, but the extent of code reuse varies. React Native and NativeScript can share a significant portion of code between iOS and Android. Meta’s mobile app framework has one significant pro: you may also create desktop apps for macOS & Windows.
Ionic allows for broader code reuse across web, mobile, and desktop platforms but may require additional adjustments for optimal performance on mobile phones. You also need to remember that desktop apps created with Ionic are based on Electron. Great for development speed, but will use too many resources. For example, Slack, a popular messaging app, will easily use 500 MB of your RAM without breaking a sweat.
