Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Ionic VS jQuery UI

Compare Ionic VS jQuery UI and see what are their differences

Ionic logo Ionic

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

jQuery UI logo jQuery UI

Curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library
  • Ionic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-12
  • jQuery UI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-17

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.

jQuery UI features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    jQuery UI simplifies creating and managing complex UI components with straightforward syntax and comprehensive documentation.
  • Compatibility
    jQuery UI is highly compatible with older browsers, offering a broader range of support compared to more modern frameworks.
  • Extensibility
    jQuery UI is designed to be modular and extendable, allowing developers to use only the components they need and easily extend or theming them.
  • Rich Set of Widgets
    It comes with a variety of pre-built widgets such as datepickers, accordions, and sliders, which can save development time.
  • Animated Effects
    jQuery UI includes many built-in animation effects that can enhance the user experience without requiring additional libraries.
  • Theming
    The library provides Themeroller, a tool that allows developers to create custom themes easily, ensuring UI consistency and branding.

Possible disadvantages of jQuery UI

  • Performance
    Due to its extensive feature set, jQuery UI can be relatively heavy, which may affect performance, particularly in resource-constrained environments.
  • Not Mobile-First
    jQuery UI is not designed with mobile-first principles in mind, making it less optimal for modern responsive web applications.
  • Learning Curve
    While easy to use for simple tasks, mastering jQuery UI for more complex applications may require a significant learning curve.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Since jQuery UI relies on the jQuery library, it adds an additional dependency which can be limiting if you prefer or are required to use vanilla JS or another library.
  • Declining Popularity
    With the rise of modern frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular, jQuery UI has seen a decline in popularity and community support.
  • Limited Modern Features
    Compared to contemporary UI libraries, jQuery UI lacks some of the modern features and performance optimizations found in newer libraries.

Analysis of Ionic

Overall verdict

  • Ionic is a good choice for startups, small to medium-sized businesses, and developers who are looking to rapidly build and deploy mobile apps with a consistent look and feel across devices. It is particularly useful when the apps don't require intensive use of native capabilities and where development speed is more important than the performance of strictly native apps.

Why this product is good

  • Ionic is a popular open-source framework used for developing cross-platform mobile applications. It combines HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with front-end frameworks like Angular, React, or Vue to create hybrid applications. Its main advantages are ease of use, a rich component library, and the ability to write once and deploy across multiple platforms, saving time and resources.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking for a single codebase for multiple platforms.
  • Teams that are already proficient in web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
  • Projects that have simple or moderate use of device hardware and native capabilities.
  • Businesses prioritizing rapid development and deployment over maximizing native performance.

Analysis of jQuery UI

Overall verdict

  • jQuery UI is a solid choice for projects that already use jQuery or for developers who need to implement standard UI components quickly and easily. However, for projects starting from scratch, considering more modern alternatives that align with the current state of JavaScript development, such as React, Vue, or Angular, might be beneficial due to their extensive ecosystems and support for modern development patterns.

Why this product is good

  • jQuery UI is a popular library that extends the capabilities of jQuery with a robust set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes. It is particularly well-suited for developers who are already familiar with jQuery and need to implement features quickly without starting from scratch. Its components are widely used because they are both customizable and reliable, and it is backed by a large community that offers support and contributions. Furthermore, jQuery UI simplifies complex interactions and effects that would otherwise require significant effort to code manually, especially for those who seek cross-browser compatibility.

Recommended for

    jQuery UI is recommended for developers working on legacy projects that heavily rely on jQuery, or for quick, short-to-medium-term projects where ease of use and speed of implementation are paramount. It is also suitable for educational purposes, helping beginners understand DOM manipulation and UI interaction concepts. However, for new projects aimed at creating highly interactive and scalable applications, a framework or library that supports modern front-end technologies may be more appropriate.

Ionic videos

Fitbit Ionic smartwatch review

More videos:

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

jQuery UI videos

jQuery UI tutorial: Adding a user interface with jQuery UI | lynda.com

More videos:

  • Review - jQuery UI Ultimate:Design Amazing Interfaces Using jQuery UI : Understanding the curriculum.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Ionic and jQuery UI)
Development Tools
36 36%
64% 64
Javascript UI Libraries
22 22%
78% 78
JavaScript Framework
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
59 59%
41% 41

User comments

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Reviews

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

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
Itโ€™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. Thatโ€™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. Itโ€™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

jQuery UI Reviews

We have no reviews of jQuery UI yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, jQuery UI should be more popular than Ionic. It has been mentiond 15 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.

Ionic mentions (10)

  • Hello from Team OutSystems!
    As you may remember, Ionic, the company where Iโ€™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, Iโ€™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 โ€“ making it easier for developers to build... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years 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: about 3 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: over 4 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 / over 4 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 / about 5 years ago
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jQuery UI mentions (15)

  • Let Me Talk About Component-based Front-end Development
    The once popular jQuery, with its strengths fully utilized in jQuery UI and Bootstrap, provides many UI components and is also friendly to backend developers, seemingly meeting the requirements. However, looking at their component implementation and resource loading formsโ€”. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    jQuery UI: An open-source library for building user interfaces based on jQuery. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • What is a component library and should you build your own?
    Fortunately, when I started web development in earnest, many of these issues were ironed out. By this point, there were still a handful of libraries that made writing complex interfaces with cross-browser support a little easier. Jquery UI, the first component library I used, supported accordions and other widgets. But the browser is constantly evolving, and we now have a native way of implementing this accordion... - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Best ReactJS library for Drag-n-Drop Table for plugin Admin view?
    Because WordPress is already have these jQuery & jQuery UI libraries (https://jqueryui.com/). Source: about 3 years ago
  • jQuery 3.6.2 Released
    We still use jQuery + jQuery UI on our website because it is basically battle tested through 15+ years. https://jqueryui.com/ It is easy as hell. What's there to not like? I don't care to be called names or being old fashioned. I also don't care about "right" tooling for frontend. As far it works and it is robust and it is going to be around for many years, I am fine with it. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Ionic and jQuery UI, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

jQuery - The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.

BuildFire - BuildFire is the easiest way for small businesses to build a mobile app in a matter of minutes for iOS and Android.

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

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.

NativeScript - Build truly native apps with JavaScript