Ionic names Capawesome as migration partner

Ionic named Capawesome its official preferred migration partner on 2026-09-22 for teams leaving its commercial products. Appflow, Identity Vault, Auth Connect, and Secure Storage reach their final end of life on 2027-12-31. The announcement maps those products to Capawesome alternatives (Ionic’s announcement).

The announcement also separates those commercial products from Ionic’s open-source core. Ionic says Ionic Framework and Capacitor remain free, fully supported, and unaffected by the commercial sunset. Teams using the commercial enterprise plugins, however, are told that they need to move to alternatives before the end-of-life date (Ionic’s announcement).

Migration options before end of support

Ionic describes the recommendation as a way to make an architectural transition without starting an application again from scratch. It says Capawesome provides actively maintained, production-ready alternatives that map closely to the Ionic enterprise tools teams already use. Ionic Framework and Capacitor remain free, fully supported, and unaffected by the commercial sunset (Ionic’s announcement).

Ionic gives 2027-12-31 as the final end of life for its commercial product offerings. The products listed beside that date are Appflow, Identity Vault, Auth Connect, and Secure Storage. The post tells applications that rely on the commercial enterprise plugins to transition to alternative solutions before that date (Ionic’s announcement).

Ionic Framework and Capacitor are described as Ionic’s open-source core. The announcement says both remain completely free, fully supported, and unaffected by the commercial-product decision (Ionic’s announcement).

Identity and authentication mappings

For Identity Vault, Ionic points to Capawesome Capacitor Vault. The announcement says Capacitor Vault maps closely to the Identity Vault API and provides biometric authentication together with encrypted key-value storage. This is the named alternative in the post for teams whose existing application uses Identity Vault (Ionic’s announcement).

For Auth Connect, Ionic points to Capawesome OAuth. It says that product maps closely to the Auth Connect API surface for managing OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect provider flows. The post presents the mapping as one of the alternatives within the wider Capawesome migration path (Ionic’s announcement).

Ionic says the alternatives map closely to the corresponding APIs. The announcement directs readers to a migration guide for a step-by-step walkthrough and says Capawesome pairs its alternatives with AI migration tools that help map existing configurations (Ionic’s announcement).

Storage mappings

For Secure Storage, Ionic says Capawesome SQLite provides comparable database functionality and pairs it with Capawesome Secure Preferences for encrypted key-value storage (Ionic’s announcement).

Build, publishing, and update mappings

Ionic divides the Appflow mapping into two parts. For Appflow Builds and Store Publishing, it names Capawesome Native Builds, saying that Native Builds handles native binary compilation and automated app-store submissions in a familiar workflow. This is the announcement’s alternative for the build and publishing portion of Appflow (Ionic’s announcement).

For Appflow Live Updates, Ionic names Capawesome Live Updates, including its package name, @capawesome/capacitor-live-update. The announcement says it provides background code updates, channel management, code signing, and update logic. That list belongs specifically to the Live Updates mapping in Ionic’s post (Ionic’s announcement).

Native Builds is associated with native compilation and store submission. Live Updates is associated with background code updates, channel management, code signing, and update logic (Ionic’s announcement).

Evaluation, refunds, and self-hosting

For teams evaluating the alternatives, Ionic links to the Capawesome Migration Guide and offers a free 14-day trial. The post says the trial covers Capawesome Cloud and Capawesome’s plugin SDKs so a team can evaluate the transition. These are the two starting points the announcement provides before a migration is completed (Ionic’s announcement).

Ionic also describes a refund path tied to contract timing. If a team finishes migration before its contract renewal, Ionic says it will end the existing agreement early and issue a prorated refund for unused, prepaid service. After completing the migration, the team is instructed to contact support@ionic.io to request the adjustment and refund (Ionic’s announcement).

Migration to Capawesome is not the only path named in the post. Ionic says teams that prefer to maintain their existing setup and take direct ownership of the plugin source code can use the existing code under Ionic’s Maintenance Materials License. Those teams are also directed to support@ionic.io to explore the self-hosted path and execute the agreement (Ionic’s announcement).

How the migration record developed

Ionic’s earlier commercial-product notice says new-customer sales had ended for all of its commercial products and services. It describes a multi-year process for ending maintenance and support, says Appflow users would retain access through 2027-12-31, and says existing customers would be contacted about eligibility, next steps, and continuity plans for each offering. The same notice says an option for continued use and self-service maintenance would be offered to enterprise customers (Ionic’s commercial-product notice).

Capawesome’s own September update describes the migration mechanism from the receiving side. It says the apps:import command moves an Appflow organization into Capawesome Cloud, including apps, channels, environments, signing certificates, destinations, and automations. It also says the Live Update SDK retains Appflow’s sync() and reload() methods, and that the two platforms can run in parallel until the team is ready to retire Appflow (Capawesome’s September update).

That update separately names Capacitor OAuth, Vault, SQLite, and Secure Preferences as replacements for Ionic Enterprise plugins. These details add a migration record from Capawesome, while Ionic’s partnership announcement remains the source for Ionic’s recommendation, product mappings, refund route, and Maintenance Materials License option (Capawesome’s September update; Ionic’s announcement).

Impact on Ionic commercial migrations

The announcement gives 2027-12-31 as the final end-of-life date and names alternatives for Identity Vault, Auth Connect, Secure Storage, Appflow Builds and Store Publishing, and Appflow Live Updates (Ionic’s announcement).

Ionic explicitly says Ionic Framework and Capacitor remain free, fully supported, and unaffected by the commercial sunset. Applications that rely on Ionic’s commercial enterprise plugins need to transition to alternatives before the end-of-life date (Ionic’s announcement).

Ionic says a team that completes migration before contract renewal can receive a prorated refund for unused, prepaid service. A team that prefers to maintain its existing setup can ask about taking ownership of plugin source under the Maintenance Materials License. The announcement directs both teams to support@ionic.io (Ionic’s announcement).

Related entries

• WebAPK installation: see WebAPK installation documentation.
• Desktop platforms: see desktop-platform documentation.
• Compatibility by operating system: see operating-system compatibility tables.

Open and unverified

• Whether every API used by each Ionic commercial product has a direct Capawesome equivalent is not confirmed.
• Whether applications can switch packages without source-code or configuration changes is not confirmed.
• Whether an automated transfer is available for existing Secure Storage data is not confirmed.
• Whether either Appflow alternative covers every Appflow function is not confirmed.
• The amount of source-code or configuration work required for any individual migration is not confirmed.
• How the migration guide handles existing Identity Vault and Secure Storage data is not confirmed.
• Whether the prorated-refund path has eligibility requirements beyond finishing migration before contract renewal is not confirmed.
• Which countries, account types, and contract forms qualify for the refund offer is not confirmed.
• Pricing after the free 14-day trial is not confirmed.
• The support period and update policy for code obtained through the Maintenance Materials License are not confirmed.
• Whether there are milestone dates before the final 2027-12-31 end-of-life date is not confirmed.

Sources

• Announcing a Partnership with Capawesome (Ionic Blog)
• Important Announcement: The Future of Ionic’s Commercial Products (Ionic Blog)
• Capawesome September 2026 Update (Capawesome)