Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

PhoneGap VS NativeScript

Compare PhoneGap VS NativeScript and see what are their differences

PhoneGap logo PhoneGap

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

NativeScript logo NativeScript

Build truly native apps with JavaScript
  • PhoneGap Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-14
  • NativeScript Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21

PhoneGap features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    PhoneGap allows developers to create applications for multiple platforms, such as iOS and Android, using a single codebase. This reduces development time and effort.
  • Leverages Web Technologies
    PhoneGap uses standard web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, making it accessible for web developers to transition into mobile app development without learning new languages.
  • Access to Native APIs
    PhoneGap provides access to native device features such as the camera, accelerometer, and file system through a unified JavaScript API, enabling rich, native-like user experiences.
  • Large Plugin Library
    PhoneGap has a wide range of plugins available, giving developers the flexibility to add various functionalities to their apps without having to write complex native code.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source framework, PhoneGap is free to use and has a large community of developers contributing to its improvement and providing support.

Possible disadvantages of PhoneGap

  • Performance Issues
    Since PhoneGap apps rely on WebView components to render the user interface, they may not perform as well as fully-native apps, especially for graphics-intensive applications.
  • Limited Advanced Native Features
    While PhoneGap provides access to basic native functionalities, it may not support all the advanced features and optimizations available in native development.
  • Dependency on Plugins
    PhoneGap's reliance on plugins for additional functionalities can lead to compatibility issues, especially if the plugins are not actively maintained or updated.
  • UI Consistency
    Achieving a consistent look and feel across different platforms can be challenging, as PhoneGap utilizes web technologies that may render differently on iOS and Android.
  • Learning Curve for Performance Optimization
    While web developers might find it easy to start with PhoneGap, optimizing the app for performance, particularly on mobile devices, can require a significant amount of additional learning and tweaking.

NativeScript features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    NativeScript allows developers to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms, including iOS and Android, which saves time and resources.
  • Native Performance
    Since NativeScript directly uses native components, it delivers high performance comparable to native applications, unlike some other cross-platform solutions.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    NativeScript offers a rich ecosystem of plugins and modules, making it easy to extend functionalities and integrate with various services.
  • Single Codebase
    Maintaining a single codebase for both iOS and Android reduces development and debugging efforts.
  • Open Source
    Being open source, NativeScript has strong community support and continuous improvements driven by developers around the world.
  • Access to Native APIs
    NativeScript allows direct access to native APIs, giving developers more flexibility and control over platform-specific features.

Possible disadvantages of NativeScript

  • Steep Learning Curve
    The framework requires an understanding of native development concepts, which can be complex for new developers or those not familiar with mobile development.
  • Lack of Third-Party Components
    Compared to more mature frameworks, NativeScript has a limited number of third-party libraries and UI components available.
  • Performance Overhead
    Despite high performance, there is still some overhead compared to fully native applications due to the abstraction layer.
  • Limited Community Support
    Although the community is growing, it is still smaller compared to mainstream frameworks like React Native or Flutter, which might result in slower issue resolution and fewer resources.
  • Maintenance and Updates
    Keeping the framework and its plugins up to date with the latest iOS and Android releases can be challenging and resource-intensive.

PhoneGap videos

What is PhoneGap and Cordova?

More videos:

  • Review - Is phonegap any good ?
  • Review - Introduction to PhoneGap - An Open Source Framework

NativeScript videos

NativeScript VS React Native 2019 | performance | community | plugins

More videos:

  • Review - Which one is best for you? Flutter, React Native, Ionic or NativeScript?
  • Review - 7 Things to Know When Learning NativeScript

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PhoneGap and NativeScript)
Development Tools
43 43%
57% 57
JavaScript Framework
45 45%
55% 55
Developer Tools
50 50%
50% 50
Javascript UI Libraries
44 44%
56% 56

User comments

Share your experience with using PhoneGap and NativeScript. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare PhoneGap and NativeScript

PhoneGap 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.
Exploring 15 Powerful Flutter Alternatives
Adobe PhoneGap is a distribution of the open-source Apache Cordova project for building cross-platform mobile apps. PhoneGap makes integrating Adobe services for analytics, marketing automation, and monetization easy. For apps focused on advertising revenue or lead generation, PhoneGap can accelerate leveraging Adobe’s audience segmentation, funnel tracking, and attribution...
Best Mobile App Development Tools for Kids
A technology used for cross-platform mobile app development is referred to as PhoneGap. All the problems which we have seen above can be solved by PhoneGap easily. PhoneGap is an open-source mobile application framework. It allows developers to develop applications using standard web APIs. PhoneGap was developed by Nitobe Software, which is known as Adobe.
Source: codinghero.ai
10 Best Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
PhoneGap is another kind of tool among alternatives. Using this tool, you can develop cross-platform applications. The PhoneGap is an open-source development tool. And this is used for building iPhone, Android, Blackberry and other mobile apps with JavaScript. If you are using PhoneGap then you can reduce the development cost, time and effort.
Source: techdator.net
Top JavaScript Frameworks For Mobile App Development
As one of the popular mobile app development framework, Adobe and Apache have Adobe PhoneGap. Its open-source and flexible nature has been the crux of its rising popularity. It utilizes the built-in JavaScript API to establish a connection with the native features of mobile devices and the OS. It has a large and robust backend for easy development of native mobile applications.
Source: medium.com

NativeScript Reviews

Top 10 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform App Development
With the framework, developers get the option to craft a completely native experience even without interfering with the user interface. Those who are familiar with JavaScript can leverage NativeScript to its fullest.
Top 5 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform Development
NativeScript is a powerful framework that empowers developers to build Web, iOS, Android, and Vision Pro apps on a single codebase. If you’re comfortable with web development, especially Angular or VueJS, you’ll find NativeScript accessible.
Source: www.miquido.com
10 Best Open Source Firebase Alternatives
The native apps you develop use the richness of the mobile platform and offer the performance you need for mobile devices. NativeScript uses native APIs and controls to render, allowing you to create more sophisticated apps compared to using a hybrid approach.
10 Best Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps 
NativeScript doesn’t require Angular or Vue.js but works better when used together for cross-platform app development. This runtime framework implements JavaScript, its superset TypeScript and Angular Native, and can render a variety of apps, be they gaming, streaming, geolocation, or chat apps. The user interface is in XML and CSS. A single, reusable codebase can be applied...
Top JavaScript Frameworks For Mobile App Development
NativeScript is an open-source, cross-platform, free mobile framework that assists in the creation of a truly native Android and iOS mobile apps. These apps can be built with JavaScript, Angular, Vue.js or TypeScript. Programming using NativeScript reduces the development time and lines of code, to a large extent. Many organizations globally have been implementing it because...
Source: medium.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, NativeScript seems to be a lot more popular than PhoneGap. While we know about 20 links to NativeScript, we've tracked only 1 mention of PhoneGap. 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.

PhoneGap mentions (1)

NativeScript mentions (20)

  • What are JavaScript Engines?
    NativeScript is a good example of a runtime built specifically for cross-platform native mobile application development built using JavaScript. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Gio UI – Cross-Platform GUI for Go
    A long time ago, nativescript[1] seemed to be a strong alternative to reactnative. Is that still the case? [1] https://nativescript.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 12 months ago
  • Ask HN: Flutter or React Native?
    I'm curious about this topic as well. I would also add NativeScript[1] in the comparison. [1] https://nativescript.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Svelte Native: The Svelte Mobile Development Experience
    This is not so much the Svelte equivalent of React Native as it is just NativeScript (https://nativescript.org). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Mobile App Development for both iOS and Andriod
    There is also https://nativescript.org/ which would allow you to use Vue (or several other frameworks) to build a mobile app. Used it myself a while back for an iPad app using Vue 2 and it was pretty straightforward. It seems like there have been quite a few improvements since then so might be worth a look. Source: about 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing PhoneGap and NativeScript, you can also consider the following products

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

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

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

jQuery Mobile - jQuery Mobile

Onsen UI - HTML5 Hybrid Mobile App UI Framework - work with Angular, React, Vue, Meteor & pure JavaScript. Material & Flat design.

Framework 7 - Full Featured HTML Framework For Building iOS Apps