Use Ionic or Cordova? [closed]

Question

We want to build a simple application that use a lot of videos and images. The application should run on different mobile devices running Andriod and iPhone operating systems. Does Ionic also convert each application to all mobiles options ?

What do you suggest to use Cordova or Ionic?

Answer 1

Both.

Make your app pretty with Ionic, and it uses Cordova to wrap it for the platforms you wish.

Ionic is a superset of Cordova.

Answer 2

Ionic is a UI framework which operates on top of Cordova. Cordova is lower-level, Ionic is built to be used with Cordova.

Answer 3

edit: This answer is an update to Ionic framework version 3:

Disclaimer: This will sound like advertisement, so I have to say I'm in no way affiliated with Ionic, I just happen to like it so much that I'm sharing the love for it.

Ionic is so much more than “just” an UI framework. Ionic allows you to:

• have truly only one single codebase and deploy to iOS, Android, and Windows, along with the mobile web as a Progressive Web App
• generate icons and splash screens for all devices and device sizes with a single command: ionic cordova resources. This alone saves you at least a day of image preparing for various sizes.
• instantly update your apps with code changes, even when running directly on your device with ionic cordova run --livereload
• build and test iOS and Android versions side-by-side and see changes instantly with ionic lab
• share your Ionic apps with clients, customers, and testers all around the world without ever going through the App Store with ionic upload
• easily access the full native functionality of the device using Ionic Native
• Also, Drifty (the team behind the Ionic framework) is building a full-stack backend services and tools for your Ionic app like Live updating (for deploying a new version without going through Apple review process! - this is huge!), Push notifications, Cloud packaging, Ionic Creator etc.
• Ionic CLI (command line interface) uses Cordova in the backend and allows you to build (directly using Ionic CLI) apps for iOS and Android (just by doing ionic cordova build ios or ionic cordova build android).
• Ionic uses Angular as a frontend framework so if you’re familiar with it, it will come as a bonus. Yes, the newest version of Ionic (currently 3) uses the newest and coolest Angular (currently 4) (which was a total rewrite from the Angular 1 version)
• All in all, I personally think Ionic framework has a bright future, so if nothing else – give it a try I bet you’ll like the ease of making an app with it.

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This is the previous answer which covered Ionic 1

Disclamer: This will sound like advertisement, so I have to say I'm in no way affiliated with Ionic, I just happen to like it so much that I'm sharing the love for it.

Ionic is so much more than "just" an UI framework. Ionic allows you to:

• generate icons and splash screens for all devices and device sizes with a single command: ionic resources. This alone saves you at least a day of image preparing for various sizes.
• instantly update your apps with code changes, even when running directly on your device with ionic run --livereload
• build and test iOS and Android versions side-by-side and see changes instantly with ionic serve --lab
• share your Ionic apps with clients, customers, and testers all around the world without ever going through the App Store with ionic share
• easily accessing the full native functionality of the device using ngCordova (here you get to use any Cordova plugin - so Ionic is indeed much more than Cordova per se)

Also, they're building a full-stack backend services and tools for your Ionic app like Deploy (for deploying a new version without going through Apple review process!), Analytics, Push notifications.

Ionic CLI (command line interface) uses Cordova in the backend and allows you to build (directly using Ionic CLI) apps for iOS and Android (you by doing ionic build ios or ionic build android and woila).

Ionic uses Angular as a frontend framework so if you're familiar with it it will come as a bonus. They're working closely with the Angular 2.0 team too.

All in all, I personally think Ionic has a bright future, so if nothing else - give it a try I bet you'll like the ease of making an app with it.