NativeScript is an open source framework that allows
you to create native iOS and Android apps, with one codebase, using the web
skills you already have (JavaScript and CSS) and the libraries you already
love.
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Sencha
Score 6.8 out of 10
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Sencha is a mobile application development platform acquired by IDERA in 2017.
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Pricing
NativeScript
Sencha
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
NativeScript
Sencha
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
The NativeScript framework and CLI are completely free and open source. NativeScript Sidekick is a free download to improve developer productivity with optional paid tiers for power users.
I gotta be honest, after a PoC period, we choose to rewrite the whole application in a different cross-platform app. Our developers had to invest a lot of time and effort to debug a lot of plugin-related issues, which we needed to utilize the android mobile phone capabilities. QR reader, special visualizations, and fine-tuning were really hard and often resulted in writing native Android code instead of using the shared Angular code. In the end, we think that writing a standalone Android app and an Angular app would have been a better alternative, as the shared code base was so unreliable that it did not save us any time.
It's great to develop business applications. Previously, we tried different technologies but we find it the most suitable for us. We also deploy a generic backend so we don't need to install anything new to implement new applications. This helps us to develop very fast and with very low effort.
True native app. The app uses native components and that is quite noticeable in the overall performance of the app. NativeScript is also awesome in the way we can access the native APIs, so we are never really constrained by the framework. If we need, we can just dive into the native APIs without leaving our environment and language (JS).
Cross-platform. Builds for Android and iOS. It deals with the platforms differences very well.
Support for Vue.js. Even though it is just a community effort, the NativeScript-Vue plugin is the best alternative to build native Apps with Vue.js. That was a major factor to go with NativeScript.
The hybrid is ok but native is better for performance and the right use case I want to go for is the performance without dealing with too many development tools.
The community support is excellent. They have a slack community as well as a discourse forum forum.nativescript.org Both of these offer community driven support. The forum is more for a threaded discussion. The slack community is more for a quick talk.
Ionic Ionic is an excellent Angular-based framework for mobile, and it does give a lot of access to the native device api's. However, the technology is based on Cordova, which means the apps being built are just webviews, with html, css and JS all running on the UI thread, and potentially creating very slow experiences for users. NativeScript is a truly native solution, and so provides a faster user experience. ReactNative We evaluate ReactNative, and found it much the same as NativeScript. The main difference is that your JS is all written with React, while NativeScript lets you choose between normal JS, Angular, and Vue. For our team, Angular was the most appropriate choice.
Each of the above platforms offer a specific solution. Sencha provides a complete solution that is a library of components as well as a framework to modularize your application so that it's better manageable. Once you get over the learning curve of the whole technology it's a breeze to implement new functionality within the application. We have an aggressive client who comes to us every other day with some new requirement, and sencha has been able to answer all of those without issues.
The poor quality of NativeScript documentation has the potential to weigh heavily on development timelines, budgets, and QA resources in a NEGATIVE manner.
The poor interoperability of NativeScript plugins can significantly increase development time.
The need to seek out professional instruction to learn how to use NativeScript effectively may become a burden on your budget.
The number of breaking changes between versions of NativeScript, may cause your development efforts to lag further behind the most recent releases of NativeScript and your other chosen environments than you are accustomed to.
NativeScript still does not support the latest major version of Angular. Any significant changes to the other environment components of your systems may hold you back even further while NativeScript plays catch-up.