10 Reasons to Choose Ionic for Mobile Development

The Ionic stack makes it easy to build iOS, Android, Desktop, and Progressive Web Apps using standard web technology. There are a lot of options for cross-platform mobile and web app development, so when should you or your team consider using Ionic?

Here are 10 reasons you might want to choose Ionic:

1. You’re a web developer

One of the best reasons to choose Ionic is if you’re a web developer and want to stay in the web development world. The Ionic stack is built on standard web development technologies meaning you can build the majority of your app directly in a browser and use standard browser development tools and technologies, while still deploying and building a traditional native app.

Other cross-platform toolkits don’t use the web development stack so aren’t the best fit for web developers.

2. You are building a new app dev engineering team

Because the Ionic stack is focused on web developers, it’s the easiest cross-platform technology to hire for because there are considerably more web developers in the world than any other mobile technology. Any web developer can easily learn to build apps using the Ionic stack and it will be the most familiar to them, and have the best compatibility with popular web frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.

And hiring web developers means they can then develop for mobile, desktop, and web without the need to hire specialist teams for each platform.

3. You’re an enterprise (or work at one)

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.

Ionic is the industry leader in enterprise app development with hundreds of Fortune 1000 customers, and customers love it.

4. You have existing web experiences and investments

Because the Ionic stack is based around standard web development, it’s the only cross-platform solution that supports bringing existing web experiences, libraries, and other web code into an app.

This is particularly important for enterprises or teams with a heavy web presence that want to bring those experiences into existing apps, such as traditional native apps.

5. You want to join a massive community of developers

Building apps with popular technologies makes it easier to hire for, easier to find partners, and easier to find resources on the web as you build your app.

The Ionic developer community is massive, with millions of developers around the world having built apps on the stack. Passionate community members build and share tutorials, add-ons, templates, and more, and developers can find help on the Ionic forum and Stack Overflow.

But Ionic is unique in that the community isn’t just limited to Ionic’s bubble. Because Ionic is based on standard web technologies, the addressable community goes beyond Ionic and overlaps with the broader web development community, such as the React, Angular, and Vue communities. This is critical when considering building out app dev teams because an Ionic team can be built with web developers, but other technologies require hiring specialists on languages and technologies that are not widely used.

6. You’re on a tight deadline

We often hear from teams who spent months building their app using a different technology, failed to hit deadlines, and then switched to Ionic and had the new app working and surpassing the old one within weeks.

Ionic is highly productive because the web is highly productive. And one app can run on multiple platforms so development time can be upwards of 3-4x faster than traditional native development!

7. You want your apps to be on iOS, Android, Web, and even desktop on day one

Ionic apps run anywhere the web runs, and with the same code! And Ionic has official support for iOS, Android, Desktop, and Web, so teams can hit the ground running — targeting all these platforms and their respective user bases at launch.

8. You want to be able to benefit from both app store and web traffic

Because the Ionic stack is based on web technology, teams can target the web and build a high-performance Progressive Web App (PWA).

This means teams can reach users both in traditional app stores but also on the web and through Google search to maximize reach and have the best chance for a successful app project. We’ve talked at length about how the Ionic stack gives you the best distribution optionality of any cross-platform technology in the market.

9. You already have web developers on your team

If you already have web developers on your team or at your company, using the Ionic stack is a no-brainer! Web developers can easily become mobile developers by learning to use the Ionic stack, including Ionic’s 100+ mobile-optimized UI components and the native runtime that provides hooks into functionality on each platform. Ionic also supplies the means to build and deploy those apps.

10. You’re a student or new to app development

Ionic is the most accessible platform for cross-platform app development. If you’re familiar with basic web development you can build real mobile apps (and desktop + web apps) today!

Learning Ionic requires learning a few new HTML tags, some new JavaScript APIs for native functionality, and then just building your app using your framework of choice (React/Angular/Vue/etc).

And the best thing is you continue to build your web development skills at the same time and don't have to change your technical career focus.