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Comment by cynicalpeace | Hacker News Reader

Is Capacitor a viable solution yet? I saw this tweet saying "it just works" for porting a webapp on NextJS: https://x.com/marc_louvion/status/1836023560462360746

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It's a very basic, indie hacker, habit tracker app, if Capacitor wouldn't "just work" for that, that would be really bad.

Most mobile apps (at least the ones that get you paid), though, are different, usually need good quality integration with native APIs, keyboard, etc...

Capacitor is really cool because it allows you to build a web app in iOS and Android and access the platform APIs from JavaScript. The rendering layer is a bit different though, because in React Native you can use the platform APIs _and_ the platform components. In React Native, the views you render on iOS are the same UIKit UIViews that a native app would write. In Capacitor, these are DOM elements in a webview. There are different tradeoffs, but this difference is what makes React Native look and feel more native.

I've used it to build a couple of apps for money. It does work and most of the times it seems really easy. However, these were simple apps that fetch data from a server and display it to users. I did use an Admob plugin and that worked quite well.

In my opinion no. Capacitor has the same pitfalls like NativeScript. They're both clunky and lacks proper integration between the native layer and the emulated javascript world.

No matter what framework you roll with, you're gonna hit the same ol' clunky mess—it's just how app development goes.

The trick is, some frameworks smooth over the rough spots and throw a few sweet perks your way, while others give you a taste of both the good and the gritty.

That is true and neither platform is free from their issues. But NativeScript, Capacitor, Ionic and at last... Cordova. Has each of ther own oddities. NativeScript has a really awesome typing translation of the native apis to typescript. That's honestly the most fantastic to work with of any of all of them. Great for prototyping.

But when it comes to performance. None of them beats RN. You can make some good looking continous animation of most of them (not cordova or ionic). But when it comes to lag when moving between screens, RN on mobile comes on top without doubt.

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