Ionic

Ionic, founded as Drifty Co. in 2012 by Max Lynch, Ben Sperry, and Adam Bradley, offers a development platform for building and delivering mobile applications. The founders aimed to simplify mobile app development for web developers, addressing the complexity and high costs associated with creating separate codebases for different operating systems. The company's core offering began with the Ionic Framework, an open-source software development kit (SDK) launched in 2013 that enables developers to build cross-platform mobile, desktop, and progressive web apps using standard web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

The business model is centered around this open-source framework, which is free to use, complemented by a suite of commercial products and services designed for enterprise clients. These paid offerings generate revenue and cater to larger organizations requiring advanced features for security, performance, and scalability. In November 2022, Ionic was acquired by OutSystems. Following the acquisition, Ionic has continued to support its open-source products while integrating its commercial features into the OutSystems platform and discontinuing new sales of its standalone commercial products as of February 2025.

Ionic's product ecosystem includes several key components. The core Ionic Framework provides a library of UI components and tools for creating applications from a single codebase. For enterprise needs, Ionic offers specialized solutions. Appflow is a mobile Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) platform that automates the entire application delivery process, from building native binaries in the cloud to deploying live updates and publishing to app stores. Another key product is Portals, a micro-frontend solution that allows web-based content and features to be embedded within existing native iOS and Android applications, enabling parallel development between web and native teams. To address enterprise security needs, Ionic provided solutions like Auth Connect for single sign-on integration and Identity Vault for secure biometric session management.

The company's platform serves a wide range of clients, from individual developers and startups to large corporations such as GE, Mastercard, and H&R Block. By allowing developers to write code once and deploy it across iOS, Android, and the web, the platform helps businesses reduce development time and costs. The use of open web standards ensures flexibility and helps to future-proof applications built on the platform. Keywords: cross-platform development, mobile app development, open source SDK, web technologies, enterprise app platform, JavaScript framework, mobile CI/CD, Appflow, micro frontends, Portals, Capacitor, Stencil, hybrid app development, progressive web apps, native app development, UI toolkit, single codebase, front-end framework, mobile DevOps, OutSystems, Max Lynch, Ben Sperry, Adam Bradley, Drifty Co., enterprise mobile solutions