---
title: "The Heroku Mobile App Template"
description: "The Heroku Mobile Template is an open-sourced full-stack starting point for hybrid mobile apps that can be deployed to Heroku. It addresses the early choice among native iOS or Android, mobile web, hybrid clients, and backend technologies. The sample, “Quiz Live,” combines an AngularJS client with a Node.js and Express server, SocketIO real-time communication, BookshelfJS, and Postgres persistence for authentication, data storage, and notifications. Apache Cordova can package the HTML and JavaScript assets as a native app, while Ionic supplies cross-platform mobile UI components. Developers can fork the GitHub repository, deploy with the Heroku Button, and run it locally with Node.js and Postgres; the template also includes a Force.com example that creates Lead records for registering Quiz users."
---

# The Heroku Mobile App Template

[Heroku](https://yomu.fyi/company/heroku) · Scott Persinger · Oct 2, 2014

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

The Heroku Mobile Template is an open-sourced full-stack starting point for hybrid mobile apps that can be deployed to Heroku. It addresses the early choice among native iOS or Android, mobile web, hybrid clients, and backend technologies. The sample, “Quiz Live,” combines an AngularJS client with a Node.js and Express server, SocketIO real-time communication, BookshelfJS, and Postgres persistence for authentication, data storage, and notifications. Apache Cordova can package the HTML and JavaScript assets as a native app, while Ionic supplies cross-platform mobile UI components. Developers can fork the GitHub repository, deploy with the Heroku Button, and run it locally with Node.js and Postgres; the template also includes a Force.com example that creates Lead records for registering Quiz users.

## Context

Starting a mobile app requires choosing among native iOS or Android, mobile web, hybrid approaches, backend technologies, or a Mobile Backend-as-a-Service. The template is intended to reduce the need to make all of those decisions independently.

## Approach / What changed

The template combines an AngularJS client, Ionic UI components, Apache Cordova packaging, a Node.js and Express server, SocketIO real-time communication, BookshelfJS, and a Postgres database. It can be forked from GitHub, deployed with the Heroku Button, run locally, and integrated with Force.com.

## Takeaways

- The sample uses AngularJS on the client and Node.js on the server, allowing JavaScript to be used throughout the stack.
- SocketIO distributes state changes in real time for the Quiz Live app, avoiding the complexity of mobile push notifications for that use case.
- Apache Cordova packages the HTML and JavaScript assets into native apps, while Ionic supports interfaces across iOS and Android devices.

**Tags:** [Angular](https://yomu.fyi/topic/angular), [Heroku](https://yomu.fyi/topic/heroku), [Ionic](https://yomu.fyi/topic/ionic), [Node.js](https://yomu.fyi/topic/node-js), [Postgres](https://yomu.fyi/topic/postgres)

- Source: [Heroku](https://www.heroku.com/blog/heroku-mobile-app-template)
- Source URL: https://www.heroku.com/blog/heroku-mobile-app-template
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-09-09T14:23:32.377Z

[Read original post](https://www.heroku.com/blog/heroku-mobile-app-template)