Apache Cordova
By Apache Software Foundation
Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) is an open-source mobile development framework that wraps HTML, CSS, and JavaScript web apps in a native WebView container, letting them be distributed through app stores and access native device APIs via…
Definition
Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) is an open-source mobile development framework that wraps HTML, CSS, and JavaScript web apps in a native WebView container, letting them be distributed through app stores and access native device APIs via plugins.
Overview
Cordova originated as PhoneGap, created by Nitobi in 2009 and later donated to the Apache Software Foundation, which renamed the open-source project Cordova (Adobe retained the PhoneGap brand for its own distribution built on the same technology). Its core idea was to let web developers ship a mobile app without learning native iOS or Android development, by rendering the app's HTML/CSS/JS inside a native WebView and exposing device capabilities — camera, contacts, geolocation, file system — through a JavaScript plugin API. Cordova became foundational infrastructure for the 'hybrid app' era, underpinning frameworks like early Ionic Framework versions that supplied the UI layer on top of Cordova's native bridge. Its plugin architecture allowed the community to add support for new device features without changes to Cordova's core. As performance expectations rose, frameworks offering genuinely native rendering — React Native, Flutter — captured much of the growth that hybrid WebView apps once had, and Ionic itself moved toward its own Capacitor runtime as a modernized alternative to Cordova. Cordova remains functional and is still used in some legacy hybrid apps, but it sees comparatively little adoption in new projects today. It is often mentioned alongside NativeScript in this space. It is often mentioned alongside JavaScript in this space.
Key Features
- Wraps web apps (HTML/CSS/JS) in a native WebView for app-store distribution
- Plugin architecture exposing native device APIs to JavaScript
- Cross-platform builds for iOS, Android, and other platforms from one codebase
- Command-line tooling for building, testing, and packaging apps
- Large historical plugin ecosystem covering common device features
- Foundation technology underlying early hybrid app frameworks