Capacitor

Turn any web app into an iOS/Android app with native plugin access: the cheapest path to mobile for web teams.

Capacitor is Ionic's native runtime for web apps: a standard web build wrapped in a native shell with a plugin API to camera, filesystem, notifications and a hundred device features, shipping the same codebase to iOS, Android and the web with progressive native access.

Why founders use it: it is the web-developer's path into app stores with an escape hatch. A product already written as a web app becomes installable native software by adding the runtime, and the plugin bridge, with community plugins for the common needs and a clean path to custom Swift and Kotlin when something is missing, keeps the web code in charge. Live updates push web-layer fixes without review delays where policy allows.

A realistic setup: the web app built with any framework, Capacitor wrapped, plugins for push, camera and storage, native configs per platform, CI producing signed store builds, and hot-fix updates over the air for web-only changes.

Trade-offs: heavy native UI or graphics want real native code, plugin quality varies, and the webview tax on feel is real compared with React Native's native widgets. Compare with React Native for native-first and PWAs when stores are not the goal.