Moving from Ionic Appflow
Ionic stopped selling Appflow to new customers in February 2025 and says existing customers keep access through December 31, 2027. You have time. Move on a normal release, not in a rush.
Native Update replaces Appflow's live updates. It doesn't replace its cloud builds, so keep building your native app in your own CI or on your own machine.
If your Appflow app is React Native, stop here: Native Update serves Capacitor only today, and React Native, Flutter and native packages are not available yet.
1. Add the plugin and a key
yarn add native-update
npx cap sync
npx native-update keys generate --type rsa --size 4096
Capacitor 8 is required; the installation page lists the rest. Create your app on the dashboard.
2. Swap the live update calls
Replace the Appflow live update code in your boot path with the Quick Start setup. Bundles here must be signed, and the device checks the signature before a bundle can run.
await NativeUpdate.notifyAppReady();
const result = await NativeUpdate.sync();
3. Map your environments
Test, QA and production become channels. A percentage rollout is set on each release.
4. Move the release step in CI
npx native-update deploy ./dist --app com.example.app --rollout 5 --wait
The CI guide has a full pipeline. Remove the old plugin in one store build, and keep Appflow live until that build has spread.
The facts, dated
Ionic Appflow prices
| Plan | Price | Terms | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| All plans | No price listed | Quote only; new customer sales discontinued 2025-02-11, existing customers keep access through 2027-12-31 | Source |
Native Update prices
| Plan | Price | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 30 apps, 5,000 monthly active users |
| Pro | $9.99 a month | Unlimited apps, 50,000 monthly active users |
| Team | $8.99 per seat a month, 3 seats minimum | Unlimited apps, 100,000 monthly active users per member |
Feature by feature
| Feature | Ionic Appflow | Native Update |
|---|---|---|
| Over-the-air web bundle updates | Yes · Source | Yes |
| Signed bundles, verified on the device | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| Automatic rollback when a bundle fails to start | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| Roll back from the dashboard or CLI | Yes · Source | Yes |
| Rollout to a percentage of devices | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| Channels (development, staging, production) | Partly · Source | Yes |
| Delta updates | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| Your own server or self-hosting | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| In-app store update flow | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| In-app review prompt | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| Background update checks | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |
| CLI plus HTTP management API | Partly · Source | Yes |
| Capacitor apps | Yes · Source | Yes |
| React Native apps | Yes · Source | No |
| Flutter apps | Not stated on the pages we checked | No |
| Native Android and iOS apps | Not stated on the pages we checked | No |
| Free plan | Not stated on the pages we checked | Yes |