Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

SwiftUI VS Apache Cordova

Compare SwiftUI VS Apache Cordova and see what are their differences

SwiftUI logo SwiftUI

SwiftUI is an innovative, exceptionally simple way to build user interfaces across all Apple platforms with the power of Swift.

Apache Cordova logo Apache Cordova

Platform for building native mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
  • SwiftUI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-28
  • Apache Cordova Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-17

SwiftUI features and specs

  • Declarative Syntax
    SwiftUI uses a declarative syntax, which allows developers to state what the UI should do, resulting in clearer and more maintainable code.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    SwiftUI allows for creating apps that work across all Apple platforms, including iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, enabling more efficient code reuse.
  • Live Preview
    Xcode’s SwiftUI Previews allow developers to see changes in real time without building the entire app, speeding up the development process.
  • Seamless Integration with UIKit and AppKit
    SwiftUI can be easily integrated with existing UIKit and AppKit code, allowing developers to incrementally adopt it.
  • Automatic Dark Mode Support
    SwiftUI provides automatic support for dark mode, simplifying the process of creating themes for applications.

Possible disadvantages of SwiftUI

  • Limited Backward Compatibility
    SwiftUI is only available for iOS 13 and later, which limits its use if targeting older iOS versions is necessary.
  • Growing API
    Since SwiftUI is relatively new and still evolving, some advanced or specific UI components may be missing or not fully optimized.
  • Performance Overhead
    For complex UI setups, SwiftUI can introduce performance overhead compared to UIKit, especially in its initial versions.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers accustomed to UIKit, learning SwiftUI’s declarative style might take some time and adjustment.
  • Bugs and Stability Issues
    As a newer framework, SwiftUI might have more bugs compared to the more mature UIKit and can sometimes lead to stability issues.

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.

SwiftUI videos

How I learned SwiftUI - Design+Code Course Review

More videos:

  • Review - 3 Things I Love/Hate about SwiftUI Rant
  • Review - Should I Learn SwiftUI instead of UIKit?

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 SwiftUI and Apache Cordova)
Development Tools
14 14%
86% 86
JavaScript Framework
16 16%
84% 84
Javascript UI Libraries
16 16%
84% 84
Developer Tools
13 13%
87% 87

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare SwiftUI and Apache Cordova

SwiftUI Reviews

We have no reviews of SwiftUI yet.
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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, Apache Cordova should be more popular than SwiftUI. 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.

SwiftUI mentions (25)

  • 🚀 Mastering SwiftUI with Composable Architecture: A Game-Changer for Scalable Apps
    TCA is a game-changer for SwiftUI development, making state management structured, predictable, and testable. While it has a learning curve, the long-term benefits outweigh the effort—especially for growing and complex applications. 🎯. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • How to Build iOS PDF Viewer with SwiftUI
    SwiftUI is Apple's latest user interface framework, designed to revolutionize the way developers create UI for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Launched at WWDC 2019, SwiftUI offers a modern, declarative syntax that allows developers to build complex UIs with less code and a more intuitive development process. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • SwiftUI vs. UIKit: What is the best choice for building an iOS user interface in 2024?
    As an iOS engineer, you've likely encountered SwiftUI and UIkit, two popular tools for building iOS user interfaces. SwiftUI is the new cool kid on the block, providing a clean way to build iOS screens, while UIkit is the older and more traditional way to build screens for iOS. SwiftUI uses a declarative style where you describe how the UI should look, similar to Jetpack Compose in Android. UIkit, on the other... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Easy Way to Display Markdown in SwiftUI using Text
    Struct ContentView: View { @State private var text: String = " **SwiftUI** helps you build great-looking apps across all _Apple_ platforms with the power of Swift — and surprisingly little code. You can bring even better experiences to everyone, on any Apple device, using just one set of tools and APIs.[SwiftUI](https://developer.apple.com/xcode/swiftui/)" // declare variable as LocalizeStringKey instead ... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Launch HN: Pynecone (YC W23) – Web Apps in Pure Python
    It took me a bunch of iterations to figure out the value prop, but hmm...it's actually pretty good. I can see all the SwiftUI[0] inspiration in how to make compositions, instead of relying on CSS only. Recently there was Rux[1] which is JSX in Rails, but that is really only dealing with ergonomics oh having Components in a nice DSL. Then there is actual deployment story. I recently made a DRF + Next App, and I... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years 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 SwiftUI and Apache Cordova, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Flutter - Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀

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.

ComponentKit - ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS