Apache Cordova vs. Appcelerator (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apache Cordova
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
N/AN/A
Appcelerator (discontinued)
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Appcelerator was a mobile app development platform acquired by Axway in 2016. It has been discontinued.N/A
Pricing
Apache CordovaAppcelerator (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache CordovaAppcelerator (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apache CordovaAppcelerator (discontinued)
Considered Both Products
Apache Cordova
Chose Apache Cordova
I have worked on Appcelerator Titanium and also on Apache Cordova and I find Cordova is a much stable, easy, performant and cost effective solution to developing hybrid mobile apps. I will go with Apache Cordova over Appcelerator Titanium any day.
Appcelerator (discontinued)
Chose Appcelerator (discontinued)
Appcelerator makes you write a structured code whereas Cordova just packages your code and you are free to structure it. Appcelerator bridges your javascript code with native code and that would make it run faster than javascript code in Cordova apps. However, with recent …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Apache CordovaAppcelerator (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Swiftify
Swiftify
Score 9.0 out of 10
Swiftify
Swiftify
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Swiftify
Swiftify
Score 9.0 out of 10
Swiftify
Swiftify
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Swiftify
Swiftify
Score 9.0 out of 10
Swiftify
Swiftify
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache CordovaAppcelerator (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(4 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache CordovaAppcelerator (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache
It is suitable for making portable applications, with almost the same code for several platforms. You can access native features of the device or use an open source plug-in from the repository to create a local database and access the internal storage of the device. It is wonderful for the construction of a native application, through the use of standard web code. It is not recommended for enterprise applications.
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Discontinued Products
I do not think I can recommend Appcelerator at this point due to the issues with Appcelerator studio, lack of good debugging support, lack of thorough documentation and forums and the additional cost overhead of licenses. The pros are just that it allows for cross-platform development. However, Cordova does a much better job of it and excels at places where Appcelerator currently struggles
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Pros
Apache
  • Cordova makes it very easy to develop apps for multiple platforms. The setup is very simple when it comes to creating a project, adding platforms, building and deploying apps. If you have a little mobile app development experience, all you need to know is HTML, CSS, Javascript and only a handful of cordova commands to get started with your hybrid app.
  • Cordova provides a simple solution to access any and all of the device features through native plugins. You have a host of third-party and cordova plugins available to use device features like filesystem, camera, health kit, location services etc. You can also write your very own plugins and use them for your cordova based apps.
  • Cordova is free to use! The only cost you will bear is the individual mobile platform developer program enrollment cost to deploy your apps to those platforms.
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Discontinued Products
  • Adds structure to your code through Alloy framework.
  • Easy to integrate with iOS SDK and to build and run iOS apps.
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Cons
Apache
  • Needs to be fully compatible with mobile machines
  • Support for a wide variety of platforms
  • Needs better backwards compatibility
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Discontinued Products
  • It is very hard to debug your code. Breakpoints never worked for us even with the latest Appcelerator Studio and we had to rely on log statements to debug.
  • There is a need to purchase licenses from Appcelerator to run the code on a device or for creating iOS distribution builds. This is an additional cost when you have already paid for Apple developer program for precisely these things.
  • If things are broken due to lack to support between Appcelerator and a new iOS version, you pretty much have to rely on a new version release from Appcelerator for the issue to be fixed.
  • It is difficult to create enterprise distribution builds where the distribution certificate is owned by your organization's team and you only have a development certificate for the same.
  • The forums on developer.appcelerator.com are seldom helpful. It is hard to find solutions for issues even on other forums like stack overflow.
  • Documentation needs to be improved.
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Alternatives Considered
Apache
Apache Cordova is the mother of all other frameworks. The Ionic developed framework is well suited for development but most of their features are offered by paid services. As Apache Cordova is open source and has a license to modify it, it has no legal problems to work with it. Also, most well-known IDEs recognize the Apache Cordova snippets.
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Discontinued Products
Appcelerator makes you write a structured code whereas Cordova just packages your code and you are free to structure it. Appcelerator bridges your javascript code with native code and that would make it run faster than javascript code in Cordova apps. However, with recent mobile browsers, you would hardly notice any performance deterioration with Cordova apps. Appcelerator struggles with issues related to its IDE, debugging, documentation and forums and additional costs. Cordova makes it much more simpler to develop cross-platform apps with better developer support, debugging support, documentation and forums minus the additional costs.
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Return on Investment
Apache
  • It has a positive impact in general. Cordova is really a great solution for web developers who want to bring their incredible ideas to devices, but they just do not have a lot of time to put into iOS and Android learning curves.
  • Our biggest benefit was that the management of images for multiple devices.
  • Developing with Cordova has drastically reduced the cost of cross-platform deployment.
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Discontinued Products
  • We were able to build and deploy a mobile app with Appcelerator. However, the platform still has issues and does not cover our needs as much as some of its competitor like cordova does.
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