Vaadin vs Apache Click which one to choose for my webapp development

Question

Vaadin and Apache Click seem to be equally good, which one should I choose for developing my web application. Or rather, what are the Pros and Cons of each framework.

Answer 1

I'm a committer of Apache Click but hopefully you will find my opinion objective.

I don't know Vaadin at all, just had a cursory look at their website and examples and mission statement.

Apache Click and Vaadin are meant for different problem spaces. Apache Click is targeted at traditional enterprise web applications while Vaadin targets the Rich Internet Application (RIA) space.

Apache Click is a traditional share nothing, stateless framework. Unlike traditional action based web frameworks Click provides a slightly higher level of abstraction by using Pages and Components. At the of the day Click isn't a revolution. Its just one of many approaches of doing web application development. In my opinion its a very good approach, both from a developer and maintainer point of view. (In enterprise environments the developer and maintainer are often not the same individual, so I differentiate between the two roles).

However developers sometimes have requirements that cannot be satisfied by traditional web applications, which is where RIA comes in. They provide a richer user experience (think desktop) but this does not come for free. RIA comes at a cost in terms of complexity, productivity and time-to-market. It makes sense though, if the requirements are for a richer experience, you need to do more in order to deliver that experience.

My advice here is: think carefully about your requirements. Don't simply assume that RIA is better, there is a price to pay, so make sure you get return for your investment.

Lastly, if your requirement is for RIA, then you should compare Vaadin with Flex. If your requirement is for a more traditional web application then compare Click with Struts, Stripes, Wicket, Tapestry etc.

Kind regards

Bob

Answer 2

Before making your choice you should evaluate all options by taking them out on a test drive.

I'm not familiar with Click, and someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand Click basically a technique to link your server side code to web pages. The UI is page-based and you define the UI with components corresponding to HTML elements. Ajax is not (yet) supported, I gather.

Vaadin operates at a higher level of abstraction. With Vaadin you get to concentrate on your business logic, and build your UI naturally with views, layouts and other components (check out the Sampler). You don't need to care about RPC, page transitions, HTML or templates. Vaadin gives you a fully cross-browser compliant Ajax UI that looks and works great out of the box. It's very easy to get started, and the forum is very active (>700 messages last month compared to 96 on the Click mailing list).

Disclaimer: I'm a member of the Vaadin team and have not used Click.

Answer 3

Surely Apache Wicket is something you can not ignore if you are comparing UI frameworks. ( I am doing same.) I dropped Vaadin because of poor documentation ( maybe I am not a good Googler.)

Currently comparing Wicket, Click, and ZK.

Click and Wicket are ahead so far for the following reasons:

1. Generates pure HTML instead of rendering UI using JavaScript which happens in GWT, Vaadin, and ZK. You can use HTML5 features then.

2. Even with native HTML, server-side binding of UI forms is possible. You don't need to worry about communication with the server. ZK also does this but with their own language ZUML.

3. I have found server-side memory footprint higher in ZK in the case of components like the ZK Grid. (Memory footprint for Click is not known to me yet.)

Answer 4

I would choose, and I already did in a few projects Click (over all other frameworks).

The main selling point for me was that I was able to learn Click and be quite productive in one week-end (Vaadin - but other frameworks too took me much more). The free and available documentation for Click is much better - you can compare the sites yourself (even if the Vaadin site looks cooler, the Click site is simply more useful - at least it was for me).

The live examples are much better - I always look at them as a snippet repository, and just copy what I need from there (since I'm a lazy programmer :) ) - there's a "Page Java" and "Page HTML" link for every example that shows the source code for every available example.

Regarding the message traffic, I don't think that should be a criteria, since having so good free online docs, and the framework being so much simpler, the users simply don't need to ask that much.

Disclaimer: I'm just a simple user that have used both frameworks.

Answer 5

I use both ;-)

Click is the best for classic web applications (pure html with no/ small/ handmade javascript). It is very lightweight (small size and stateless), less verbose (you can do your html in html with velocity/freemarker power ;-). A real php-killer.

Vaadin is the best for desktop like enterprise applications. It is statefull, heavyweight, verbose, but amazing.

Grails, Play!, Spring MVC is a real step back after Click/Vaadin.

So my advice: use both! For most of your pages you will use Click, for complicated tasks - Vaadin.

Answer 6

Is Apache wicket an option as well ?

My experience is with jboss/ejb/jquery, but looking at technologies for starting a new project. I've done a quick bit of research myself abd Vaadin seems to be very well regarded.

Answer 7

I've been using Click since 2006. I've built various web applications with it in the last 4 years. All apps (B2B) are still going strong and continue to be maintained/added to now. The best things about Click IMO include:

• Very little magic and almost no plumbing. It's all just plain java (and jsp/velocity/freemarker take your pick; or alternatively use all 3 if you so choose; I have for some scenarios because it's so easy to).
• It's super fast (It doesn't mean your app won't be slow, it just means Click will never be the reason why your app is slow)
• It is so easy to integrate your favourite java lib eg. Ibatis SQLMAP, Spring, displaytag, DWR etc.etc.
• You don't need to buy a book to understand/use it (although you may need books for all the other 3rd part libs you plan to use).
• Most of my code written 4 years ago still works with the current release. That is just awesome.
• Click fits in your head. The whole framework that is. It is so simple you don't have too many questions even as a beginner.
• The guys that maintain Click are super responsive and very noob friendly.
• It's simplicity helps my apps adapt to new/old tech. i.e I can easily do AJAXy stuff if I want or not.
• The form features make handling html forms very easy/fast.
• The table features make displaying data super easy/fast
• Click's features help me write apps very quickly. Makes the need for scaffolding unnecessary imo.

If you want a light weight, fast, easy to understand framework which helps you build applications as fast as you or your team are personally able to, check out click, it will be worth your while.