The ionic structure is the basis for creating hybrid mobile applications. It will always be - for free .
Ionic.io is the site for the Ionic Platform, which adds additional services such as Deployment, Build, Push Notifications, User Management, etc. Currently it is in beta testing and thus free, but as they arrive (in the near future as I know) they will be pricing (however there will be a free plan).
In principle, you do not need Ionic Platform, but it's really awesome and worth the money (if you drop out of the free tier) if you ask any Ionic developer.
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