Why Ionic App Development Makes Sense for Businesses in 2024

Posted by Sara Suarez on November 2nd, 2023

Did you know? Mobile applications are accountable for roughly 90% of smartphone usage. In other words, mobile users spend 90 percent of their time on applications. This may be one of the reasons why businesses irrespective of their industry verticals or sizes are investing in mobile app development to drive sales, deliver a better user experience, and accomplish other business goals. However, when it comes to app development, it becomes challenging for enterprises, particularly startups, ISVs, and SMEs to develop a dedicated native mobile application for each platform such as Android, iOS, and Windows. This is where the need for cross-platform mobile app development comes in.

In fact, cross-platform frameworks came into existence so that any brilliant application idea should not be discouraged owing to budgetary constraints. Today, the market is brimming with a plethora of cross-platform application development frameworks. Each framework comes with a set of pros and cons. Now, if you are pondering what cross-platform framework you should consider for your application development, it’s suggested to choose Ionic over others.

Ionic is a popular cross-platform mobile application development framework built on top of Apache Cordova and AngularJS when released back in 2013. However, the latest iteration is a complete revamp of web components and it allows you to choose any UI framework of your choice including React, Angular, or Vue.JS. Furthermore, this cross-platform app development framework offers a slew of tools and services for engineering hybrid desktop, mobile and progressive web apps (PWAs). These applications are based on the latest web development practices and technologies such as HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Leveraging a combination of these 3 robust programming languages by an Ionic app development company will help you get the best UI for your niche audience. If reports were to be believed, more than 5 million applications are built on the Ionic framework. Some of the leading enterprises that are leveraging the potential of the Ionic framework include Burger King, MarketWatch, Disney, BBC, EA Games, Airbus Helicopter, Southwest Airlines, National Health Service, and many more.

4 Little-known Reasons to Opt for Ionic Framework for App Development

1. Free and Open-Source

Developing a mobile application using a proprietary framework can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to a business enterprise. However, you can cut down this whopping cost by opting for the Ionic framework. This open-source SDK for cross-platform application development framework licensed under MIT is available for free of cost. Since the framework is easily accessible to everyone with no costs attached to using it, you can get a mobile app for your business without exhausting your development budget.

2. Platform Independent

If you are planning to invest in mobile application development, it's quite natural that you're likely to target multiple mobile platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows. With cross-platform app development frameworks, you have to invest in a single codebase that works seamlessly across all the platforms. Since Ionic is platform-independent, mobile applications developed using the same framework will run smoothly on multiple mobile platforms without any hiccups. Another advantage of using the Ionic framework is that it enables developers to engineer applications in a quick turnaround time.

3. Cordova Plugins

A plugin is a piece of code written in JavaScript that is affixed to your mobile application. It allows you to perform a host of things since it is closely related to the native language of the mobile platform you are targeting. In other words, plugins are helpful in rendering powerful and dynamic functionality to a mobile application. When you hire Ionic app developers, they will leverage Cordova plugins to access multiple features of an operating system (OS) such as flashlight, battery, camera, GPS (Geolocation), and others. By utilizing the plugins, mobile app developers can engineer an application tailored to your unique business requirements in a quick turnaround time.

4. Supported by Strong and Active Community

Whenever a software, framework, or application is open-source, a strong and active community is attached by default. The best part of choosing Ionic over other cross-platform frameworks is that it is built on top of modern technologies such as Angular, React, Vue, Apache Cordova, etc. and all of them are open-source. This simply means that you’ll be backed by a strong and active community of developers who are there to help you out on several forums and dedicated YouTube channels. What’s more interesting about Ionic is that the founders of this amazing framework are also available on popular social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., so wherever you come across any problem, you may ask directly from them by tagging in your post. They are really helpful in solving the problems of users.

Final Words

In the end, it won't be an exaggeration to say that the Ionic framework is a coveted choice both among developers and businesses of all sizes since it offers a host of benefits.