Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Flutter VS Apache Cordova

Compare Flutter VS Apache Cordova and see what are their differences

Flutter logo Flutter

Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀

Apache Cordova logo Apache Cordova

Platform for building native mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
  • Flutter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-14
  • Apache Cordova Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-17

Flutter features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    Flutter allows you to create applications that run on multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, web, and desktop, using a single codebase, thereby significantly reducing development time and effort.
  • Hot Reload
    The Hot Reload feature allows developers to see the results of their code changes almost instantly without a full restart, boosting productivity and making the debugging process more efficient.
  • Rich Set of Pre-Built Widgets
    Flutter offers a comprehensive collection of customizable widgets that follow modern design guidelines, allowing developers to build attractive and consistent UIs effortlessly.
  • Performance
    Flutter applications are compiled directly to native ARM code, which can result in superior performance comparable to native applications.
  • Strong Community Support
    As an open-source project, Flutter has a large and active community, providing abundant resources, third-party libraries, and plugins to accelerate development.

Possible disadvantages of Flutter

  • Large App Size
    Flutter apps tend to have a larger file size compared to native apps, which could be a concern for users with limited storage space or slow internet connections.
  • Limited Ecosystem
    While Flutter is growing rapidly, its ecosystem is not yet as mature as those of more established frameworks, meaning that certain third-party libraries, tools, and plugins might be lacking or underdeveloped.
  • Platform-Specific APIs
    Despite its cross-platform capabilities, Flutter may require the development of custom platform-specific code for certain functionalities, which could complicate the development process.
  • Learning Curve
    Flutter uses Dart, a programming language that is less commonly used compared to JavaScript, Java, or Swift, which may result in a steeper learning curve for new developers.
  • State Management Complexity
    Managing states effectively in large applications can be challenging in Flutter, potentially leading to convoluted code if not handled properly.

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.

Flutter videos

beginning of flutter youtube channel

Apache Cordova videos

Apache Cordova - Hello World from Android and iOS

More videos:

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Flutter and Apache Cordova)
Development Tools
76 76%
24% 24
Developer Tools
72 72%
28% 28
JavaScript Framework
56 56%
44% 44
Javascript UI Libraries
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 Flutter and Apache Cordova

Flutter Reviews

Explore 9 Top Eclipse Alternatives for 2024
With Flutter 2’s release in 2021, developers now have full support to construct intuitive Windows apps, marking another milestone in Flutter’s inclusive cross-platform vision.
Source: aircada.com
Top 10 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform App Development
So, above are some of the Flutter alternatives you can consider for your upcoming projects. To make the right selection, you should analyze the characteristics of your applications, which will help you make the most appropriate selection. You can also get in touch with a Flutter development company to go with the right option.
Top 5 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform Development
Qt’s native capabilities contribute to its good app performance and size. Compared to Flutter, Flutter apps tend to be larger than native apps. However, the framework’s features and language are designed to boost Flutter app performance.
Source: www.miquido.com
Exploring 15 Powerful Flutter Alternatives
Beyond official Flutter built by Google, Flutter Community is an open-source fork-adding capability and component. Flutter Community has specifically expanded device testing coverage beyond Google’s in-house capabilities. With contributors volunteering devices for testing worldwide, Flutter Community tracks compatibility across over 3000 device variants spanning multiple...
Top 10 Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
Flutter is a framework that is used by stack developers to build multi-platform apps from a single codebase. It is an open-source project which was developed by Google to build app UI.

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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Flutter should be more popular than Apache Cordova. It has been mentiond 363 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.

Flutter mentions (363)

  • 🚀 iOS vs Android Development: Which One Should You Learn First? (The Truth No One Tells You!)
    🎯 Still confused? Start with Flutter, which lets you build both iOS & Android apps with one codebase! Check it out here. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Writing and Reading NFC in Flutter | Comprehensive Guide
    Flutter provides robust support for NFC through third-party packages, making implementation seamless. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Building cost-effective AI-driven MVPs with Flutter development services
    Flutter is a powerful, popular, and open-source platform known for its developer-friendly environment, wide ecosystem of libraries, extensions and other tools. A key feature of Flutter app development services is that it promotes the development of cross-platform applications without needing to build or write two or three different codebases. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to Build a CRUD Application Using Flutter & Strapi
    In this tutorial, I'll show you how to build a full-featured mobile CRUD application with Flutter and Strapi 5. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • React v19 has been released
    I don't agree but if you're looking for something that renderers everything in a canvas it's called Flutter https://flutter.dev/, and strangely it's made by Google, even though Flutter's success means the end of scraping the web for search. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
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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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What are some alternatives?

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

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

import.io - Import. io helps its users find the internet data they need, organize and store it, and transform it into a format that provides them with the context they need.

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

Ionic Framework - A front-end SDK to develop applications with HTML5 , CSS3 and JavaScript.

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

Content Grabber - Content Grabber is an automated web scraping tool.