Historical questions and answers
These answers come from the original PhoneGap website. They describe PhoneGap while it was an active project; references to current tools, platform support and availability are historical. Read the closure announcement guide for what changed.
Q: WHAT IS PHONEGAP?
A: PhoneGap is an open source solution for building cross-platform mobile apps with standards-based Web technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS.
Q: HOW MUCH DOES PHONEGAP COST?
A: PhoneGap is an open source implementation of open standards and is FREE. That means developers and companies can use PhoneGap for mobile applications that are free, commercial, open source, or any combination of these.
Q: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHONEGAP AND CORDOVA?
A: In October 2011, PhoneGap was donated to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under the name Apache Cordova. Through the ASF, future PhoneGap development will ensure open stewardship of the project. It will remain free and open source under the Apache License, Version 2.0. PhoneGap is an open source distribution of Cordova. Think about Cordova’s relationship to PhoneGap like WebKit’s relationship to Safari or Chrome.
For more details, read the blog post PhoneGap, Cordova, and what’s in a name?
Q: WHAT PHONEGAP APPS ARE ALREADY IN APP STORES?
A: There are thousands of apps already in app stores and directories. We list some of them here.
Q: WHAT IS PHONEGAP BUILD, AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM PHONEGAP FRAMEWORK?
A: PhoneGap is a mobile application development framework, based upon the open source Apache Cordova project. It allows you to write an app once with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and then deploy it to a wide range of mobile devices without losing the features of a native app. PhoneGap Build is a cloud-based service built on top of the PhoneGap framework. It allows you to easily build those same mobile apps in the cloud. Learn more about PhoneGap Build and try it out for free!
Q: WHERE CAN I ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT PHONEGAP?
A: Join the PhoneGap Community Forum, follow us on Twitter or Facebook or check out the PhoneGap IRC channel.
Q: HOW DO I CONTRIBUTE CODE BACK TO THE MAIN PHONEGAP REPO?
A: If you’d like to contribute to PhoneGap, and we hope you will, please go to cordova.io
Q: CAN YOU USE PHP/ASP/JSF/JAVA/.NET WITH PHONEGAP?
A: A PhoneGap application may only use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. However, you can make use of network protocols (XmlHTTPRequest, Web Sockets, etc) to easily communicate with backend services written in any language. This allows your PhoneGap app to remotely access existing business processes while the device is connected to the Internet.
Sources & archive notes
Recovered repository material is attributed to its original authors and distributed with its source license. Changes: FreeSoft layout, archive context, navigation, link and image locations. Apache License 2.0 · Notices and provenance. Editorial material is labeled separately.