I guess whilst using Cordova on it's own was also possible, it would, like you said, also involve including/setting up multiple libs. Ionic just sets you up wit

I guess whilst using Cordova on it's own was also possible, it would, like you said, also involve including/setting up multiple libs. Ionic just sets you up with very solid boilerplate and then also comes boxed with awesome UI components. For us the slight overhead was definitely a good trade-off.