Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Angular Material VS Ionic

Compare Angular Material VS Ionic and see what are their differences

Angular Material logo Angular Material

Angular Material is both a UI Component framework and a reference implementation of Google's Material Design Specification.

Ionic logo Ionic

Ionic is a cross-platform mobile development stack for building performant apps on all platforms with open web technologies.
  • Angular Material Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-24
  • Ionic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-12

Angular Material features and specs

  • Consistent Design
    Angular Material provides a set of reusable, well-tested, and accessible UI components based on the Material Design specification, ensuring a consistent look and feel across your application.
  • Pre-built Components
    Offers a wide range of pre-built components including forms, navigation, buttons, and data tables that significantly speed up the development process.
  • Responsiveness
    Components are designed to work smoothly on various screen sizes and resolutions, making it easier to create responsive applications.
  • Integration with Angular
    Tightly integrated with Angular, making it easier to implement and maintain. It also leverages Angular’s features like reactive forms and change detection.
  • Theming and Customization
    Supports extensive theming and customization options, allowing developers to tailor the look and feel of their applications to match brand requirements.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    Comes with detailed and comprehensive documentation, providing examples and guides to help developers get started quickly.

Possible disadvantages of Angular Material

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to the extensive feature set and the intricacies of Material Design, there is a learning curve involved which might be difficult for beginners.
  • Large Bundle Size
    Integrating Angular Material can add to the bundle size of your application, which may affect the loading time and performance, especially for smaller projects.
  • Limited Customizability
    While it offers theming, there are limitations on how much components can be customized compared to creating bespoke solutions.
  • Performance Overhead
    Some components come with additional performance overhead due to their complexity and the use of multiple dependencies.
  • Dependency Management
    You need to manage and maintain additional dependencies that come with Angular Material, which can complicate the build process and dependency management.
  • Opinionated Design
    Being based on Google’s Material Design, it might impose design choices that might not align with every project's design requirements.

Ionic features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    Ionic allows developers to build applications for multiple platforms such as iOS, Android, and the web using a single codebase. This significantly reduces development time and costs.
  • Rich UI Components
    Ionic provides a wide range of pre-built UI components that are customizable and designed to look and feel native on all devices. This makes it easier to create visually appealing and consistent interfaces.
  • Integration with Angular
    Ionic is tightly integrated with Angular, a popular and widely-used front-end framework. This integration provides a robust architecture for building complex applications.
  • Active Community and Extensive Documentation
    Ionic has an active community and extensive documentation, tutorials, and resources. This makes it easier for developers to find support and resolve issues.
  • Cordova and Capacitor Plugins
    Ionic apps can leverage Cordova and Capacitor plugins to access native device features like the camera, GPS, and file system, providing near-native functionality.

Possible disadvantages of Ionic

  • Performance Issues
    Because Ionic uses WebView for rendering, performance can sometimes be inferior to native applications, particularly for highly interactive or graphically intensive applications.
  • Dependency on Third-Party Plugins
    Ionic heavily relies on third-party plugins for accessing native features. If these plugins are not well-maintained or lack support for certain functionalities, it can lead to challenges.
  • Learning Curve
    While Ionic simplifies cross-platform development, it still requires familiarity with web technologies like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML, as well as frameworks like Angular. This could be a steep learning curve for developers not versed in these technologies.
  • File Size
    Ionic applications tend to have a larger file size compared to native applications, mainly due to the inclusion of WebView and other dependencies. This can impact download times and initial load performance.
  • Rendering Delays
    There can be noticeable delays in UI rendering, especially on older devices, due to the abstraction layer that Ionic provides over native components.

Angular Material videos

Angular Material Data Table Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Angular Material’s Trees - Tina Gao
  • Review - Angular Material in practice – Thomas Burleson

Ionic videos

Fitbit Ionic smartwatch review

More videos:

  • Review - Fitbit Ionic Review (IN-DEPTH)
  • Review - Fitbit Versa 2 vs Ionic | Fitness Smartwatch Review (NEW)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Angular Material and Ionic)
Developer Tools
38 38%
62% 62
Development Tools
27 27%
73% 73
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0
JavaScript Framework
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Angular Material and Ionic

Angular Material Reviews

We have no reviews of Angular Material yet.
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Ionic Reviews

Top 10 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform App Development
Ionic is mainly known for its simplicity and, thus, is an appropriate choice for those who have a small team or own startups. The framework is popular for its predesigned UI components, which catalyze the overall development process.
Exploring 15 Powerful Flutter Alternatives
Ionic is an open-source UI framework that uses web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build progressive web and mobile apps. Ionic shines for apps centered around forms, lists, and data. The extensive UI components and flexible layout options facilitate quickly scaffolding up CRM-style interfaces for managing records and inventory without needing to style every...
Should I use Moxly to create Ionic apps faster? Ionic vs Moxly
It’s always important that an app is responsive and especially important with Ionic, which is designed to reach multiple platforms with one codebase. This is not supported by Moxly, which is not good in the realm of Ionic. That’s where things look different again with Ionic. There you can create Responsive Apps and websites.
THE BEST 34 APP DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE IN 2022 LIST
One codebase. Any platform. Now in React and Angular. Ionic Framework is an open-source mobile UI toolkit for building high-quality, cross-platform native and web app experiences. Move faster with a single codebase, running everywhere. Free and open-source, Ionic offers a library of mobile-optimized UI components, gestures, and tools for building fast highly interactive apps.
Android Studio Alternative
Ionic framework is an open-source UI toolkit that allows web technologies to be used to create high-quality mobile and desktop applications. Ionic architecture is based on the user interface or user experience of the application. It’s simple to understand, integrate, or utilize without a front frame using a simple script that incorporates other libraries or frameworks like...
Source: www.educba.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ionic should be more popular than Angular Material. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Angular Material mentions (1)

Ionic mentions (10)

  • Hello from Team OutSystems!
    As you may remember, Ionic, the company where I’ve worked as a Developer Advocate for the past year and a half, was acquired in late 2022 by OutSystems. As part of that acquisition, I’m excited to announce that I transitioned to a Lead Developer Advocate position on the OutSystems side of the house this past November. In my new role, I will continue doing what I love – making it easier for developers to build... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Best Programming language to create Mobile Application ?
    You're looking for a framework to build a progressive web app. Such as Ionic: https://ionic.io/. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • What is this type of styling called?
    Some website's that I've collected that use the styling I'm on about; Ionic.io, spline.design, wickedbackgrounds.com, coolbackgrounds.io,. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Android Games with Capacitor and JavaScript
    In the past I would have used something like Cordova, but this new thing from the folks at Ionic has TypeScript support out of the box for their native APIs and support for using any Cordova plugins you might miss. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • 10 Reasons to Choose Ionic for Mobile Development
    Ionic is the only cross-platform development stack that has Enterprise support and integrations for teams building employee and customer-facing apps. Ionic offers dedicated support, security features like Biometrics and Single Sign-on, and cloud services for remote app updates, app builds, and app store distribution. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Angular Material and Ionic, you can also consider the following products

Vuetify - Material Component Framework for VueJS 2

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Buefy - Lightweight UI components for Vue.js based on Bulma

Apache Cordova - Platform for building native mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Vuesax - Vuesax is a library of Vuejs components that facilitates front-end development and streamlines work...

NativeScript - Build truly native apps with JavaScript