Ionic Appflow vs VoltBuilder

Ionic AppFlow is one of the most widely used build tools for mobile apps. Not surprising - it’s been around for a few years.

How does it compare to VoltBuilder, a much newer product? Let’s compare them.

The major difference is that Ionic Appflow is completely an online service: your source certificates and passwords are saved on Ionic’s servers, as well as your source code if you are using Ionic git. A nice user interface lets you maintain your apps on their server. VoltBuilder only stores your app as long as needed1: your project is saved on your local system. Apps are submitted by drag and drop.

Each product has additional features not listed here: Ionic Appflow has GitHub and CI/CD integration and live OTA updates. VoltBuilder has App Hosting, QR Codes for device downloading and iOS/Android Certificate Generation.

Ionic Appflow compared to VoltBuilder

  Ionic Appflow VoltBuilder
Cost $492/499 $15/37
Free Trial None2 15 days
Xcode 13.0 14.2.0
cordova-android 10.1.1 11.0.0
Android API API 30 (Android 11) API 31 (Android 12)
Upload from GitHub Local System
Upload via API No Yes
Signing keys Saved on Ionic server Saved temporarily during build1
Source code Saved on Ionic server Saved temporarily during build1
Targets Android, iOS, web Android, iOS, Windows
Simplified messages log only Yes
Push to App Stores Yes Yes
Android Build time (secs) 83 51
Android apk size (k) 305 305
iOS Build time (secs) 179 44
iOS ipa size (k) 358 355

Data as of Nov 1, 2021.

Interested in finding out more? Check out the Migration Guide.


  1. Source code and signing keys are cached up to 48 hours on our servers.  2 3

  2. Hobby Plan. Basic Plan ($499/month) has a 14 day trial.  2

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