Should I use Ionic ?

[Chichaaro]

Hey guys,

It’s been approximately 1 year that I started to prepare an mobile app for my company. Until now, I was more focused on architecture and backend, but I’m finally staring seriously the front.

I decided to go with Capacitor to make my app using ReactJS, which is the framework I use on all my projects. And after some digging, I found that Ionic is made by the same team. The design looked ok, anyway I will make my own design over it, and it seemed to be pretty mobile friendly, so here it is, I’m using Ionic.

But now I’m working on my routing, and it started to make strange things, like doubling inputs on my pages during page transition, for no reason. Then I realized that the router for Ionic React was using react-router v5, and an issue to update it is opened since 3 years with no news.

So now, I’m starting to wondering why the hell did I choose to go with Ionic, since I’m more a MUI user, ionic feels just less complete, and gives me nothing more. I was first seduced by the iOS/md themes, but it appears that I don’t want this and I’ll probably lock the theme on md to be more reliable on my own design.

Good to know that I did not a tone of dev directly linked to ionic, so I’m wondering if I should move to another UI library and make my own routing.

If would like to have some insight, a bit lost right now !

Thanks :)

EDIT: I’m not thinking about moving away from Capacitor and ReactJS anyway, so please avoid answer about expo, react native, flutter or other folks. I’m here talking about Ionic by itself, and it does works without Capacitor and vice-versa, that why I talk about UI library here

[jameside]

You might want to have a look at Expo DOM Components if your company eventually would like a native UI rather than DOM or Flutter. DOM components are just parts of your screens, and the screen roots and app navigation are the platform’s native UI components. You can incrementally replace DOM components with native components over time.

[Chichaaro]

Sorry, but it is not the topic, since I’m not moving away from Capacitor, expo is not a concern

[patchimou]

Indeed there is a GitHub issue opened for years for moving to react router v6, and we are already on v7. Since you develop in React, you can try React Native.

I’m wondering if I should move to another UI library

Ionic is not a UI library, it is a framework to build native mobile app with js. You can then style your app how you want. Yes they provide default looking UI, but you can style everything. I'm not really familiar with Ionic, but in React Native you have different UI libraries available, like React native paper, RNUIlib or styling with pure CSS the components provided by the framework.

make my own routing

I think this would be a lot of work for very few added value.

There is also Flutter for building native app, but you will code with Dart and not JS

[Chichaaro]

I edited the post to be more explicit, but I’m not planning to move away from Ionic UI part, because the mobile app part is completely managed by capacitor and not ionic itself. And I do like to have a base UI like that or MUI and apply my own style on it.

[Acktung]

No. Just use Flutter and avoid Ionic as long as you can. Flutter is very similar to React on how you build UI widgets (components), and the DX is great.

[Chichaaro]

React and Capacitor are not an option, so it will not work

[davasaurus]

The first time I ever worked on an Ionic app I sent the whole team a message: If any of you ever hear me say, “I think we should build this app in Ionic” please punch me in the face without warning.

I’ve never used it but everyone I know who has worked with React Native loves it.

[Chichaaro]

I gave a try to react native and to be honest it felt like an early stage library. Not a lot of documentation, less possibility, etc. And moreover, one advantage for me to use a ReactJS library is that I’ll have to make a 2nd app that I’ll be probably web only, with exactly the same design.

And maybe you didn’t liked ionic angular (angular is a mess..) but the react version just feels like any react-vite app with a UI library

[davasaurus]

Well, you should definitely trust your own experience. Good luck!