The Ionic team recently announced the first production release of Ionic React, a version of Ionic that leverages React to build applications for iOS, Android, Desktop, and Progressive Web Apps (PWA).
First announced as part of the Ionic 4 release, Ionic React leverages the react-dom library. Rather than building an alternative to React Native, Ionic React wraps web APIs rather than native controls and APIs.
To support its capabilities, Ionic React leverages two other open-source Ionic dependencies, Capacitor and Stencil. Stencil supports the generation of highly efficient components and is part of Ionic React's PWA solution. In contrast, Capacitor is a modern replacement for Cordova or PhoneGap, leveraging modern JavaScript and web features with deployment across iOS, Android, Electron, and the web.
To use Ionic React, developers first install the Ionic CLI:
npm i -g ionic
Then, a new React project should get created:
ionic start my-react-app
The Ionic CLI provides a series of interactive questions to answer to build an application, generates a starter template, and provides a default HTTP server leveraging Create React App to compile, start, and open a project.
Ionic React applications by default leverage TypeScript, though it is simple to switch to vanilla JavaScript if preferred. Ionic React works with functional components by default, provides theming, routing, React hooks, and many more React features, gathered together in a supported environment.
As explained by Ionic CEO Max Lynch, Ionic React provides optional support beyond typical open-source software:
Ionic is bringing something different to the React and cross-platform ecosystem: a fully-supported, enterprise-ready offering with services, advisory, tooling, and supported native functionality available to teams that need more than they can get through community-supported options.
Ionic React is part of the Ionic Framework and is open source software available under the MIT license. Contributions and feedback are encouraged via the Ionic GitHub project and should follow the Ionic contribution guidelines and code of conduct.
