Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Ionic VS Sencha Touch

Compare Ionic VS Sencha Touch 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.

Sencha Touch logo Sencha Touch

The leading mobile web app framework based on HTML5 for amazing mobile apps.
  • Ionic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-12
  • Sencha Touch Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-24

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.

Sencha Touch features and specs

  • Rich UI Components
    Sencha Touch provides a wide range of pre-built, customizable UI components like carousels, lists, and forms, which enable developers to create visually appealing and functional mobile applications with ease.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Sencha Touch is designed to work across various mobile platforms, allowing developers to build applications that run on iOS, Android, and other devices from a single codebase.
  • MVC Architecture
    Sencha Touch follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, which helps in organizing code and improving maintainability by separating the application logic from the user interface.
  • Community and Support
    Sencha Touch has an active community and provides extensive documentation, forums, and support resources which are beneficial for both new and experienced developers working with the framework.

Possible disadvantages of Sencha Touch

  • Performance Issues
    Applications built with Sencha Touch can sometimes experience performance issues, especially on older or lower-powered devices, due to its heavy reliance on JavaScript.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Sencha Touch has a steep learning curve, particularly for developers who are new to the framework or JavaScript/HTML5 development in general, due to its extensive feature set and complex API.
  • Licensing Costs
    Sencha Touch is not open source and requires a commercial license for certain features, which can be a significant cost factor for startups or small businesses.
  • Limited Native Features Access
    While Sencha Touch allows for cross-platform development, accessing device-specific native features might require additional plugins or integrations, which can complicate the development process.

Ionic videos

Fitbit Ionic smartwatch review

More videos:

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

Sencha Touch videos

Phone Gap and Sencha Touch

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Ionic and Sencha Touch)
Development Tools
82 82%
18% 18
Developer Tools
81 81%
19% 19
JavaScript Framework
76 76%
24% 24
Javascript UI Libraries
79 79%
21% 21

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 Sencha Touch

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

Sencha Touch Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks For Mobile App Development
Sencha Touch has now been merged with Sencha Ext JS. Sencha Ext JS has been one of the most effective JavaScript frameworks to create cross-platform mobile applications. It consists of well tested and good performance UI components like pivot grid, trees, lists, forms, HTML5 calendar, D3 adapters, etc. that help in getting the best of results.
Source: medium.com
9 Top JavaScript Mobile Frameworks To Know In 2020
Sencha Touch(similar to Ext JS) is said to be the only framework that offers optimal solutions to developers create fast and impressive mobile applications that work on Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, and more. It comes with lots of creative and useful components that work efficiently on all types of mobile applications. Here is a glimpse of the features.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ionic seems to be more popular. 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.

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
View more

Sencha Touch mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Sencha Touch yet. Tracking of Sencha Touch recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Ionic and Sencha Touch, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

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

Appcelerator Titanium - Appcelerator Open Source

NativeScript - Build truly native apps with JavaScript

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

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