A cross-platform framework is only as useful as its access to device features, so the plugin ecosystem matters as much as the core. The numbers below were read from GitHub 29 and the npm registry 2,036 on 25 September 2026; npm counts cover the week of 15-21 September.
| Framework | GitHub stars | Weekly npm downloads | Where native features come from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capacitor 243,123 | 16,724 | 3,264,707 (@capacitor/core) | 35 official plugins, capacitor-community, Capawesome 178,914 , most Cordova 129 plugins |
| Cordova | 3,788 (cordova-android) | 70,361 (cordova-android) | cordova-plugin-* on npm, many unmaintained |
| React Native 36,878 | 126,714 | 9,743,087 (react-native) | Expo SDK 6,418 modules; 2,707 libraries in React Native Directory |
| Flutter 16,720 | 179,073 | not on npm (pub.dev) | pub.dev packages, Firebase 1 and Google plugins |
| Tauri | 111,374 | 1,869,017 (@tauri-apps/api) | 30 official plugins, 5 of them mobile-only |
Stars measure attention, not fitness: Flutter's and Tauri's are high partly because both also serve desktop apps, and Tauri's downloads include every desktop app. What matters more is whether the plugin you need is maintained for the current major version (Vetting Community Plugins).
Capacitor's position is unusual. Its official plugins cover the device basics of Device, UI and System Plugins and Notifications and Sharing, the community and Capawesome fill most gaps, and the Cordova compatibility layer (Migrating from Cordova) opens the older plugin catalog too, so few device features are out of reach. When one is missing, a Capacitor plugin is ordinary Kotlin and Swift (Custom Plugins). React Native's ecosystem is the largest, and Expo's SDK gives a curated, versioned set of modules; since 0.82 apps run only on the New Architecture, so check a library's New Architecture status in the directory before depending on it. Flutter's pub.dev is large and well scored, and Google maintains the Firebase, Maps and camera plugins. Tauri's mobile catalog is the youngest: barcode scanning, biometrics, geolocation, haptics and NFC are its mobile-only official plugins, and its updater plugin supports only desktop. Cordova's catalog is the oldest and thinnest in maintenance: Cordova shows which core plugins are still current.
Over-the-air updates differ as well. Capacitor apps use Capawesome's Live Update (Live Updates and CI/CD), React Native apps use Expo's expo-updates (MIT, 57.0.23) with EAS Update 6,418 , and Flutter's Dart code, compiled to machine code, needs a special runtime such as Shorebird 24,513 , a commercial service with a free tier of 5,000 patch installs a month.