I am on the planning stages of a mobile application that we want to develop using web technologies.
The first idea that came to mind is using Cordova (and Visual Studio as an IDE, as recommended on the Ionic Getting Started page). That was before I understood that Cordova and Ionic were not interchangeable terms.
A little bit of more research helped me understand a little bit how Cordova and Ionic defer (I'm still not 100% clear, but it helps).
My question is, if we are planning on developing a mobile app using web technologies, including AngularJS, what would be some advantages of using Ionic or ngCordova, instead of using Cordova and finding a way implementing AngularJS?
And what would be the advantages of Ionic instead of ngCordova?
Thank you!
I would recommend you go with Ionic, and few months from now you may thank me.
Ionic, with their Ionic Platform are offering you so much more awesome features like:
You also have access to their Ionic Creator which is a tool for making prototypes by simply drag and dropping them on the canvas (as in Visual Studio for example).
You can also leverage their Market where you can buy and sell your own plugins and templates.
On top of that, you have a vibrant community of developers on which you can lean on for help.
Honestly, I really am biased, but Ionic rocks <3
Btw, you can take a look at my similar answer here.