TL;DR

Capacitor by Ionic lets you build native iOS and Android apps using your existing web skills (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). It provides a free, open-source bridge between your web app and native device APIs — camera, GPS, push notifications, filesystem, and 100+ more.

What Is Capacitor?

Capacitor is a cross-platform native runtime that makes it easy to build web-native apps:

Web-first — your web app runs in a native WebView

Native access — full access to native SDKs and APIs

Framework-agnostic — works with React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, or vanilla JS

100+ plugins — camera, filesystem, geolocation, push notifications, etc.

Progressive Web App support built-in

Quick Start

# Add Capacitor to any web project npm install @capacitor/core @capacitor/cli npx cap init

# Add platforms npm install @capacitor/ios @capacitor/android npx cap add ios npx cap add android

# Build and sync npm run build npx cap sync

# Open in native IDE npx cap open ios # Opens Xcode npx cap open android # Opens Android…