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Apache Cordova VS Foundation

Compare Apache Cordova VS Foundation and see what are their differences

Apache Cordova logo Apache Cordova

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

Foundation logo Foundation

The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world
  • Apache Cordova Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-17
  • Foundation Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-20

Apache Cordova features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    Apache Cordova enables developers to build applications for multiple platforms (iOS, Android, Windows, etc.) using a single codebase, which saves time and resources.
  • Use of Web Technologies
    Cordova allows the use of standard web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, making it accessible for web developers to create mobile applications without needing to learn platform-specific languages.
  • Extensive Plugin Ecosystem
    Cordova provides a wide range of plugins that enable access to native device functionalities (such as the camera, accelerometer, GPS, etc.), allowing for more versatile app development.
  • Cost Effective
    By reducing the need for multiple native developers and leveraging a single web development team, Cordova can significantly cut down the costs of application development.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project, Apache Cordova benefits from community support and contributions, leading to continuous improvements and a wealth of shared knowledge and code.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Cordova

  • Performance Issues
    Applications built with Cordova may experience performance issues, especially with complex graphical or computational tasks, as they are essentially web applications wrapped in a native container.
  • Limited Native Functionality
    Although Cordova provides many plugins, accessing the latest native features often requires custom development, which can be complicated and time-consuming.
  • Dependency on Plugins
    Developers often rely heavily on third-party plugins to access native features. If these plugins are not well-maintained, they can introduce compatibility issues and bugs.
  • User Experience
    The user experience of Cordova-based apps may not be as smooth or responsive as fully native applications, potentially leading to lower user satisfaction.
  • Security Concerns
    Using multiple plugins and technologies can increase the surface area for security vulnerabilities. Also, web-based applications can be more susceptible to common web security issues.

Foundation features and specs

  • Customizability
    Foundation offers a high level of customizability, allowing developers to adjust the framework to meet specific project requirements.
  • Responsive Design
    Foundation is built with mobile-first design principles, ensuring that applications look and function well on a variety of devices and screen sizes.
  • Semantic Code
    The framework encourages the use of semantic HTML, making code more readable and improving accessibility.
  • Range of Components
    Foundation provides a wide array of pre-built components such as buttons, forms, and navigation bars, which can accelerate development time.
  • Strong Community Support
    The Foundation community is active and provides extensive documentation, forums, and additional resources to help developers.
  • Flex Grid
    Foundation's Flex Grid system provides a powerful and flexible way to create responsive layouts that adapt to different screen sizes.

Possible disadvantages of Foundation

  • Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive features and customizability, Foundation can have a steep learning curve for beginners.
  • Size
    The full-featured version of Foundation can be quite large, potentially slowing down load times if not optimized properly.
  • Browser Compatibility Issues
    While generally robust, Foundation has been known to have occasional compatibility issues with certain browsers, necessitating additional fixes.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Foundation relies on jQuery for several of its components, which can be seen as outdated or unnecessary by some modern developers.
  • Complexity for Small Projects
    For smaller projects, Foundation might be overkill in terms of features and setup, making simpler frameworks or no framework a more optimal choice.

Apache Cordova videos

Apache Cordova - Hello World from Android and iOS

More videos:

  • Review - What’s Your View on Apache Cordova?

Foundation videos

BEST & WORST NEW FOUNDATIONS

More videos:

  • Review - BEST & WORST NEW FOUNDATIONS
  • Review - BEST & WORST FOUNDATIONS | Luxury & Drugstore

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Cordova and Foundation)
Development Tools
75 75%
25% 25
Design Tools
0 0%
100% 100
JavaScript Framework
100 100%
0% 0
CSS 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 Apache Cordova and Foundation

Apache Cordova Reviews

Top 10 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform App Development
Developed by Apache Cordova, PhoneGap is used extensively for developing cross-platform mobile with the use of several web technologies. It lets developers write code by using HTML, CSS & JavaScript and package it as a native app. Being a simple framework, it includes the largest collection of plugins that extend its wide functionality.
Top 5 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform Development
Apache Cordova is an open-source mobile development framework that lets you create cross-platform apps using standard web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Like NativeScript, Apache Cordova is more accessible to developers comfortable with web development, especially Angular or VueJS.
Source: www.miquido.com
Exploring 15 Powerful Flutter Alternatives
Oracle Mobile Application Framework (MAF) offers cross-platform development using standards like HTML5 and JavaScript containerized via Apache Cordova. Oracle MAF delivers excellent offline support capabilities matching the needs of field service teams and remote inspectors. With tools like Oracle Database and middleware, MAF apps cache relevant data subsets locally while...
Top 10 Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
Apache Cordova is used for building mobile applications with the help of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. It is an open-source mobile application development framework that was created by Nitobi.
10 Best Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
Apache Cordova is a tool to develop Android App Development. It enables software engineers to build apps for Android mobile phones. Using HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript instead of relying on platform-specific APIs. Like those in Android, iOS or Windows phones. When you are using Apache Cordova APIs, an app can be developed without any native code (like Java, objective-C, etc.) from...
Source: techdator.net

Foundation Reviews

22 Best Bootstrap Alternatives & What Each Is Best For
The reason I picked Foundation for this list is its strong emphasis on creating responsive designs, a feature that many developers value in the era of mobile browsing. This framework differentiates itself with an ingrained mobile-first approach, ensuring that applications look great on smaller screens without sacrificing functionality or aesthetics on larger ones.
Source: thectoclub.com
15 Top Bootstrap Alternatives For Frontend Developers in 2024
Semantic, coherent, and fully customizable, the Foundation empowers developers to create designs that are not only visually appealing but also adaptable to various screen sizes. Starting with small devices, developers can gradually enhance the complexity of their designs, ensuring a fully responsive experience layer by layer.
Source: coursesity.com
9 Best Bootstrap Alternatives | Best Frontend Frameworks [2024]
Not only this, but they also have ‘Foundation for Emails’, which is a framework to code responsive HTML emails. Hence, whenever you are looking for an alternative to Bootstrap, do give Foundation a try.
Source: hackr.io
11 Best Material UI Alternatives
Foundation is a responsive front-end framework with CSS and JavaScript components for building modern, mobile-friendly websites. It offers a comprehensive toolkit with a modular approach, allowing developers to customize and tailor their designs to meet specific project requirements.
Source: www.uxpin.com
Top 10 Best CSS Frameworks for Front-End Developers in 2022
One of the most advanced and sophisticated UI frameworks, Foundation enables quick website development. Just like Bootstrap, Foundation follows a mobile-first approach and is fully responsive. It is very suitable for huge web applications that need a lot of styling. Foundation is customizable, flexible, and semantic. And, there are over 2k contributors on Github and decent...
Source: hackr.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Cordova should be more popular than Foundation. It has been mentiond 44 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.

Apache Cordova mentions (44)

  • Show HN: I Made a Web App to Bring Children's Drawings to Life
    This is truly amazing. Is there a 'How it Works' a 'Potentials' section? I work with things that push to inspire creativity and learning to foster the passion behind creativity and authentic works where otherwise we'd see how 'AI copies our work' and now we can see how AI can bring works to life and make them more fun. Over-all would you like to see schools adopting your project? I didn't see a contact form but... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • PWAs wont replace native iOS apps
    Anyone have experience with/opinions on Apache Cordova? [1] It seems like it would solve most of the PWA issues. Although I vaguely recall reading that Apple is not too fond of apps that are basically just wrapped web views. [1] https://cordova.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • What's the latest way of submitting pwas to the app stores?
    Has anyone tried pwa builder?[2] Thank you for any insights! [0]https://cordova.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Why does everyone "suddenly" hate Single Page Apps?
    A little over a decade ago, I worked on the open-source project Apache Cordova/Adobe PhoneGap, first at IBM and later at Adobe. Apache Cordova enables you to build mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript while targeting multiple platforms with one code base. In today’s technology landscape, mobile is dominated by iOS and Android. In the early 2010’s we were awash in mobile platforms from BlackBerry,... - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • The right way to build multi platform apps in 2023 using web tech. ?
    There are layers that offer access to native APIs like capacitor, cordova and nativescript. Apparently sometimes multiple of them should be used, but I didn't understand what are the differences even after reading the announcement. These seem to be frontend agnostic technologies and Capacitor is apparently the more modern choice at the moment. Source: over 2 years ago
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Foundation mentions (21)

  • Blazor #3 - How to Install Foundation into a Blazor Project
    Foundation is a mobile-first responsive front-end framework that provides a range of CSS and JavaScript components for creating websites quickly. It’s often seen as a competitor to Bootstrap, offering more flexibility and customization options. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    Foundation: An easy-to-use, powerful, and flexible front-end framework for building web applications on any device. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Show HN: LangCSS – An AI Assistant for Tailwind
    Here is a thought you might want to consider and see if it makes sense. This is personal, but I also believe this is where design codes (especially CSS) are going to go. It is not going to be Tailwind or more new frameworks. Honestly, I think all of these Bootstrap, Foundation, and Tailwind, etc. Are like middle-layer abstractions are for designs that are neither small nor large. Bootstrap won because of the... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Front-end Framework: Comparing Bootstrap, Foundation and Materialize
    Foundation is another popular open-source front-end framework, similar to Bootstrap, but with its own set of features and design principles. It was created by ZURB a design and development company in 2011. And is also maintained by a community of developers. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • I hate CSS: how can I build UIs?
    Are you cool with JS frameworks? If so, you can use a higher level of abstraction that takes care of the CSS for you. If you just want to mock something up, you can use a pre-built UI system / component framework and just put together UIs declaratively, without having to worry about the underlying CSS or HTML at all. Examples include https://mui.com/ and https://chakra-ui.com/ and https://ant.design/ Really easy... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Cordova and Foundation, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Bootstrap - Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and JS for popular UI components and interactions

PhoneGap - Easily create apps using the web technologies you know and love: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Materialize CSS - A modern responsive front-end framework based on Material Design

Ionic - Ionic is a cross-platform mobile development stack for building performant apps on all platforms with open web technologies.

Semantic UI - A UI Component library implemented using a set of specifications designed around natural language