I stopped using it around 3 or 4 years ago I'd say, I stopped using it around the time Vue was added I think.
There are many reasons, it was inconsistent, I felt it was hack over hack, plugins gave loads of issues, docs lacked quite a bit, it made me work a lot more than other solutions. Build process was a pain too... I enjoyed using angular though, as I use it on other projects. My issue was mostly with all the layers and convoluted system.
I don't think I will give it another try in the near future, but I imagine it has improved in the last years though.
I have the impression they added too much cruft to it, and all kinds of tools (some free, some paid) in an attempt to monetize it and lock you into their ecosystem ... they're also pushing the "using web to build mobile apps is the best thing since sliced bread" mantra a lot.
At its core (the open source project) it's just a component library (CSS plus Angular/Vue/React wrappers) and that's probably fine - the whole ecosystem they built around it is what I never really cared about (but that's what probably makes them money).
What would you say are other (better) web-based solutions for building (mobile) apps?
Ohh true, I forgot about the paid stuff... I did not like that neither, though I guess it was kinda needed for them to sustain the project, as you say. The concept was kinda interesting at a technical level to me, though the DX was not the best...
I have only tried React Native, which felt a lot more powerfull and less convoluted, but still...
I'm currently working with flutter which is not web based, but after using it for 3-4 years I think that's the way to go. I see the value in using web-based solutions for building cross platform apps, as there are many developers who already know that technology, so the transtiotion is really small. And you can reuse stuff from your other web projects. But, and a big but, if you want to be happy and enjoy your work, flutter or going native is the way as far as my experience goes.
Let me tell you a little story, as I mentioned in the previous comment I stopped using Ionic 3-4 years ago, when we migrated one of our apps from Ionic to Flutter, this has been one of the best things we've done in our company. Before migrating, each update took months to polish and release, mostly because of Ionic (and in part because previous developers made quite the mess in the project). It became a bug machine, we release bugs instead of features or fixes... testing was a pain. I estimated the project had something like 3.5 years of tech debt in a 2yr old project. You can imagine the headaches and problems that came out of that.
Once we decided this was taking the company loads of time and money to maintain. We decided to go with flutter, and we can now ship faster, with less bugs, and the overall app looks a lot better, is more consistent, efficient and most importantly, it makes us want to work on it.
I'm a big flutter advocate, if that's not clear xD We're even using it to build web-apps now, and even though somewhat limited in some senses, it's quite nice to use too!
Have you tried any other better solutions? Would like to hear from you too, maybe I give them a check!
Oh yes Flutter, I can imagine that, I've heard many good things about it, a lot better even than about React Native ... yes if my core focus was mobile app development and a brilliant mobile UX, then I wouldn't touch Ionic or any web based solution with a barge pole lol - Flutter all the way ...
And if you just have a website that needs to be responsive and work on mobile, well then you don't need Ionic either, because it doesn't even target the desktop ...
So yeah, the Ionic folks are big on pushing the "web is the best for mobile" gospel, but TBH I'm not really lapping it up, lol.
(oh and Flutter nowadays can even target desktop and web, although I don't know how good that is)
P.S. I think the problem with Ionic is that in too many situations you need complicated hacks to "emulate" a decent mobile UX, while something like Flutter just gives you that naturally ... web based solutions like Ionic are EMULATING the native look & feel of mobile apps by styling generic HTML controls, that's the whole point I think
It just became stable for MacOS and Linux on the last release last week (3.0), Windows was stable for a couple of months before. It seems to be doing quite well, I have not tried it personally but as far as I know, it's quite nice as well!
So yeah, the Ionic folks are big on pushing the "web is the best for mobile" gospel, but TBH I'm not really lapping it up, lol.
Me neither, I don't think it's the way for most stuff but it has it's place though
Yes, I agree that for a certain category of (fairly simple) apps it has its place, mostly "content focused" apps without a lot of complicated functionality ... but you'd need to be fairly sure about your app being simple, and remaining simple, before you make that leap of faith ;)
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I stopped using it around 3 or 4 years ago I'd say, I stopped using it around the time Vue was added I think.
There are many reasons, it was inconsistent, I felt it was hack over hack, plugins gave loads of issues, docs lacked quite a bit, it made me work a lot more than other solutions. Build process was a pain too... I enjoyed using angular though, as I use it on other projects. My issue was mostly with all the layers and convoluted system.
I don't think I will give it another try in the near future, but I imagine it has improved in the last years though.
I have the impression they added too much cruft to it, and all kinds of tools (some free, some paid) in an attempt to monetize it and lock you into their ecosystem ... they're also pushing the "using web to build mobile apps is the best thing since sliced bread" mantra a lot.
At its core (the open source project) it's just a component library (CSS plus Angular/Vue/React wrappers) and that's probably fine - the whole ecosystem they built around it is what I never really cared about (but that's what probably makes them money).
What would you say are other (better) web-based solutions for building (mobile) apps?
Ohh true, I forgot about the paid stuff... I did not like that neither, though I guess it was kinda needed for them to sustain the project, as you say. The concept was kinda interesting at a technical level to me, though the DX was not the best...
I have only tried React Native, which felt a lot more powerfull and less convoluted, but still...
I'm currently working with flutter which is not web based, but after using it for 3-4 years I think that's the way to go. I see the value in using web-based solutions for building cross platform apps, as there are many developers who already know that technology, so the transtiotion is really small. And you can reuse stuff from your other web projects. But, and a big but, if you want to be happy and enjoy your work, flutter or going native is the way as far as my experience goes.
Let me tell you a little story, as I mentioned in the previous comment I stopped using Ionic 3-4 years ago, when we migrated one of our apps from Ionic to Flutter, this has been one of the best things we've done in our company. Before migrating, each update took months to polish and release, mostly because of Ionic (and in part because previous developers made quite the mess in the project). It became a bug machine, we release bugs instead of features or fixes... testing was a pain. I estimated the project had something like 3.5 years of tech debt in a 2yr old project. You can imagine the headaches and problems that came out of that.
Once we decided this was taking the company loads of time and money to maintain. We decided to go with flutter, and we can now ship faster, with less bugs, and the overall app looks a lot better, is more consistent, efficient and most importantly, it makes us want to work on it.
I'm a big flutter advocate, if that's not clear xD We're even using it to build web-apps now, and even though somewhat limited in some senses, it's quite nice to use too!
Have you tried any other better solutions? Would like to hear from you too, maybe I give them a check!
Oh yes Flutter, I can imagine that, I've heard many good things about it, a lot better even than about React Native ... yes if my core focus was mobile app development and a brilliant mobile UX, then I wouldn't touch Ionic or any web based solution with a barge pole lol - Flutter all the way ...
And if you just have a website that needs to be responsive and work on mobile, well then you don't need Ionic either, because it doesn't even target the desktop ...
So yeah, the Ionic folks are big on pushing the "web is the best for mobile" gospel, but TBH I'm not really lapping it up, lol.
(oh and Flutter nowadays can even target desktop and web, although I don't know how good that is)
P.S. I think the problem with Ionic is that in too many situations you need complicated hacks to "emulate" a decent mobile UX, while something like Flutter just gives you that naturally ... web based solutions like Ionic are EMULATING the native look & feel of mobile apps by styling generic HTML controls, that's the whole point I think
It just became stable for MacOS and Linux on the last release last week (3.0), Windows was stable for a couple of months before. It seems to be doing quite well, I have not tried it personally but as far as I know, it's quite nice as well!
Me neither, I don't think it's the way for most stuff but it has it's place though
Yup, that's the case as far as I can tell. React Native does a good job too, but I dont have as much experience with it to fully back that up...
Yes, I agree that for a certain category of (fairly simple) apps it has its place, mostly "content focused" apps without a lot of complicated functionality ... but you'd need to be fairly sure about your app being simple, and remaining simple, before you make that leap of faith ;)