PhoneGap vs. Titanium

Question

PhoneGap and Titanium allow you build native iPhone Apps based on HTML and JavaScript.

Has anyone gained experience with both? What are the differences?

Solution 1

There is a pretty lengthy discussion about PhoneGap VS Titanium (and Corona) on StackOverflow already that might be useful.

One of the big differences is that PhoneGap is MIT licensed and Titanium is (just recently changed) Apache licensed.

Solution 2

This article is a good summary of the practical and philosophical differences. Note its from an Appcelerator evangelist, but I still think its pretty impartial. In fact I think he shares Titanium more warts that I probably would :).

http://developer.appcelerator.com/blog/2012/05/comparing-titanium-and-phonegap.html

Solution 3

It's probably worth following the current Apple/Adobe spat, in which Mr Jobs has put the future of products that aren't written in language XYZ in the balance. OS 4 SDK states:

Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

I believe Titanium is affected by this.

Solution 4

Well..! this is not certain that which is better to implement the project. Both technologies are new and having their pros & cons as well.

Titanium says to keep native environment with the help of java Script Based framework, on the other hand the phoneGap provides everything inside the WebView, you only need to put your web based project having index.html inside the WWW folder, found in the project directory structure of the Project.

So if you comfortable with Web Works, phoneGap is suitable in this case otherWise you should go with Titanium.Its easier to use and fully facilitated.

Solution 5

Titanium: Is a cross platform, where in the code you write in JS and Titanium API's will be converted to native code and look and feel of the app will be same as native apps.

PhoneGap: Is a hybrid platform, where in you write the code using web technologies like JS, HTML and CSS. Which uses web views present in the native devices to render the UI. Look and feel is not same as native apps.

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Comments

[never_had_a_name]

What does it mean for me as a dev? Should I care?

[davejohnson]

I take it you are asking about the licensing differences? As a developer you probably don't care but your lawyer might :) For example, Apache and GPL licensed software have some incompatibilities that might not be right for you: apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html

[typeoneerror]

It's no longer (if it ever was) effected by this.

[trusktr]

Its not affected by this because Titanium conrols hardware according to those stated rules, and the javascript runs in webkit (if its not webkit, then there indeed is a problem).

[borisdiakur]

The PhoneGap code was contributed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under the name Apache Cordova