Hippy is a cross-platform mobile framework that enables building applications for iOS, Android, and Web from a single codebase using web development technologies. It functions as a dynamic app framework, supporting runtime code updates and dynamic content delivery across platforms, and connects JavaScript application logic with native platform APIs through a JavaScript bridge.
The framework distinguishes itself through its bridge-based native rendering approach, which serializes UI updates over a JSON message bus to a native host that maintains the real view hierarchy. It employs a component-based UI architecture with virtual DOM diffing to compute minimal UI updates, and uses event-driven communication to pass user interactions and system events between JavaScript and native layers. A JavaScript engine abstraction wraps multiple engines behind a unified interface, allowing runtime selection without changing application code.
Hippy supports building cross-platform applications with code reuse across iOS, Android, and Web, and renders user interfaces using a Flexbox layout engine for consistent arrangement across platforms.