Ionic Framework

Ionic 20,753 (github.com/ionic-team/ionic-framework (https://github.com/ionic-team/ionic-framework 52,684 ), MIT) is a library of mobile components, such as ion-list, ion-tabs, ion-modal and ion-searchbar, each with an iOS and a Material Design 15,533 look. It began in 2013 as an AngularJS 25,759 kit on Cordova 129 ; since version 4 the components are standard web components, so they work in Angular 42,088 , React 7,897 , Vue 5,482 or plain HTML. Ionic 9 came out on 19 August 2026, and @ionic/core drew 1.5 million npm 2,036 downloads in the month to 21 September, seven times the Cordova CLI. A script tag is enough to try it; here is the BookNest catalog:

The BookNest catalog built from Ionic componentsHTML

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en" mode="md">
<head>
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <script type="module"
    src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@ionic/core@9.0.5/dist/ionic/ionic.esm.js"></script>
  <link rel="stylesheet"
    href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@ionic/core@9.0.5/css/ionic.bundle.css">
</head>
<body><ion-app>
  <ion-header><ion-toolbar color="success">
    <ion-title>BookNest</ion-title></ion-toolbar></ion-header>
  <ion-content>
    <ion-searchbar placeholder="Search title or author"></ion-searchbar>
    <ion-list id="books"></ion-list>
  </ion-content>
  <script>
    const books = [['The Quiet Harbor', 'Mara Ellison', 14.99],
      ['Patterns of the Deep Web', 'Tomas Reyes', 39.5], ['Salt and Saffron', 'Priya Nair', 24]];
    document.querySelector('#books').innerHTML = books.map(([t, a, p]) => `<ion-item button>
      <ion-label><h2>${t}</h2><p>${a}</p></ion-label>
      <ion-note slot="end">$${p.toFixed(2)}</ion-note></ion-item>`).join('');
  </script>
</ion-app></body>
</html>

Browser output of 85

mode="md" picks the Material theme and mode="ios" the iOS one; without it Ionic chooses by platform.

Ionic's documentation now packages apps with Capacitor 243,123 , from the same team, and npm install -g @ionic/cli (7.2.1) scaffolds projects set up for it. But an Ionic app is still a web app: build it into a folder and Cordova wraps it exactly as it wraps BookNest's www. OutSystems 37,408 has owned Ionic since 2022 and is retiring its paid services (Cordova to Capacitor); the framework stays free.

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