phonegap vs cordova vs capacitor on Hacker News

Across 2007–2026 of Hacker News, capacitor leads phonegap vs cordova vs capacitor with 9,043 mentions to phonegap’s 3,482, peaking in Nov 2024.

Mention-over-time for phonegap vs cordova vs capacitor, overlaid across 2007–2026 of Hacker News. Each line is a live date-histogram over ~45M posts and comments, computed with Upstash Redis Search.

phonegap3,482 mentions, peak Sep 2011cordova3,234 mentions, peak Nov 2014capacitor9,043 mentions, peak Nov 2024

Open this comparison in the interactive tool — zoom to any date range and read the stories behind each spike →

How the lead changed hands

The hybrid-app lineage, renamed each era: PhoneGap wraps web apps in a native shell ~2011, its open-source successor Cordova carries it 2014–15, then Capacitor inherits the job and spikes in 2024.

The stories behind each line

Top “phonegap” stories

I made an iPhone game with PhoneGap and won't do it again 363 points · 2016
Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next? 252 points · 2013
How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap 155 points · 2012
Why Trigger.io doesn’t use PhoneGap – 5x faster native bridge 136 points · 2012

Top “cordova” stories

Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next? 252 points · 2013
Supersonic: New UI Hybrid Framework – Ionic, AngularJS, Cordova 147 points · 2014
Ask HN: How to start a career as a generalist? 145 points · 2017
Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS 143 points · 2014

Top “capacitor” stories

The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory 536 points · 2024
Two capacitor paradox 438 points · 2020
Proper decoupling capacitor practices, and why you should leave 100nF behind 226 points · 2025
Ask HN: Where did you learn modular electronics? 222 points · 2018

Each term on its own

More comparisons

Build your own comparison on the main chart, or read how Hacker Trends works.