Types of Web Applications

Java Web-Frameworks

	Pro	Cons
JSF	Java EE Standard - lots of demand and jobs Fast and easy to develop with initially Lots of component libraries	Tag soup for JSPs Doesn't play well with REST or Security No single source for implementation
Spring MVC	Lifecyle for overriding binding, validation, etc. Integrates with many view options seamlessly: JSP/JSTL, Tiles, Velocity, FreeMarker, Excel, XSL, PDF Inversion of Control makes it easy to test	Configuration intensive - lots of XML Almost too flexible - no common parent Controller No built-in Ajax support
Stripes	No XML - Convention over Configuration Good documentation (easy to learn) Enthusiastic community	Small Community Not as actively developed as other projects Hard-coded URLs in ActionBeans
[Struts2]	Simple architecture - easy to extend Tag Library is easy to customize with FreeMarker or Velocity Controller-based or page-based navigation	Documentation is poorly organized Too much concentration on new features Googling results in Struts 1.x documentation
[Tapestry]	Very productive once you learn it Templates are HTML - great for designers Lots of innovation between releases	Documentation very conceptual, rather than pragmatic Steep learning curve Long release cycles - major upgrades every year
Wicket	Great for Java developers, not web developers Tight binding between pages and views Active community - support from the creators	HTML templates live next to Java code Need to have a good grasp of OO The Wicket Way - everything done in Java
Click	Really simple	Small Community
Seam	solves some JSF Problems like Bookmarking Groovy Support Integration with JPA and Hibernate (WebBeans)	Still JSF
ZK	Ajax Integration and Declarative Page Creation One single source of implementation, one Tree, one Grid etc Big Community, Fast Release Cycle	Licence Costs

(based on Raibles Design)

Types of Web Applications

There are tree types of web applications:

Consumer-facing, high-traffic, stateless applications:

• Struts2
• SpringMVC
• Stripes

Internal, more desktop-like applications that are stateful:

• JSF
• Tapestry
• Wicket

Media-rich applications that require a RIA framework like Flex

• GWT
• Flex
• ZK