Different between phonegap and intel xdk or others
So, i just beginning to make hybrid mobile apps, and at first i'm going to learn phonegap but after reading some article there is mentioned about intel XDK which do what that phonegap can do but in more straight forward instalation(it have ide, emulator and so on)
so what is the difference between those? and which one is better in term of getting tutorials, community support and supported api for mobile platform?
or is it the same thing? since intel xdk can be integrated with phonegap, so it's very confusing...
Answer
Generally speaking you have different types of frameworks aimed to build hybrid apps :
- Frameworks targetting HTML5 content like Cordova or intel XDK (both via JS byte code), Intel XDK is based on Cordova
- Frameworks like Appcelerator Titanium which render the UI using the platform’s native controls but still working via JS
- Free (or partially free) Frameworks aiming to produce real native code like Unity (C# orJS based, Games oriented), Kivy (Python Based) or libgdx (Java based, Game Oriented)
- Commercial Frameworks aiming to produce real native code like Xamarin (using C#) or Embarcadero New Frameworks are coming and my list is probably incomplete.
As you see, the choice is very broad now !
Cordova and XDK are not too difficult to begin with but will show their limits shortly because they produce HTML5, not native code.
Titanium is a good choice if you want to code only in HTML/JS and have access to mobile platforms native controls. It has now an MVC Framework called Alloy. It produce rather big applications even for HelloWorld as will do most of these tools !
Unity is the best if you want to build something like a multi-platform Game. It cross-platform habilities are amazing
Xamarin is good and not very expensive if you like C#.
Choose Kivy if you want to develop with Python/Pygames tools and libgdx if you are a Java addict.