Comparing JVM Web Frameworks - February 2014
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The document is a comprehensive comparison of various JVM web frameworks led by Matt Raible, detailing their historical development, key metrics for evaluating them, and recommendations based on developer productivity and project needs. It emphasizes choosing the right framework based on specific goals and application types, noting the strengths of frameworks like Grails, Spring MVC, and Vaadin. The presentation also highlights current trends and provides a matrix for framework performance comparison.
Comparing JVM Web Frameworks - February 2014
- 1. COMPARING JVM WEB FRAMEWORKS Matt Raible http://raibledesigns.com @mraible Photos by Trish McGinity © 2014 Raible Designs
- 2. Who is Matt Raible? Father, Skier, Cyclist Web Framework Connoisseur Founder of AppFuse Bus Lover Blogger on raibledesigns.com © 2014 Raible Designs
- 3. Session Agenda ‣ History of JVM Web Frameworks ‣ The Paradox of Choice ‣ Methods and Metrics ‣ Conclusion ‣ Q and A © 2014 Raible Designs 3
- 4. History of Web Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 4
- 5. History of Web Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 5
- 6. History of Web Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 6
- 7. Comparing Web Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 7
- 8. History of Web Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 8
- 9. History of Web Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 9
- 10. 2007 © 2014 Raible Designs 10
- 11. History of Web Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 11
- 12. © 2014 Raible Designs
- 13. Today © 2014 Raible Designs 13
- 14. Too many web frameworks? © 2014 Raible Designs 14
- 15. Remember SOFEA? © 2014 Raible Designs
- 16. SOFEA became a Reality © 2014 Raible Designs
- 17. SOFEA Performance Issues © 2014 Raible Designs 17
- 18. traditional web frameworks are still relevant © 2014 Raible Designs 18
- 19. The Paradox of Choice © 2014 Raible Designs 19
- 20. Good Decisions Involve 1. Figure out your goal or goals 2. Evaluate the importance of each goal 3. Array the options 4. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals 5. Pick the winning option 6. Modify goals © 2014 Raible Designs 20
- 21. Maximizer vs. Satisficer ‣ maximizer - tries to make best possible choice ‣ satisficer - tries to find first suitable choice (Photo: Tori Cat at Flickr) © 2014 Raible Designs 21
- 22. How do you choose? © 2014 Raible Designs 22
- 23. The Real Problem © 2014 Raible Designs 23
- 24. The Real Problem © 2014 Raible Designs 24
- 25. The Real Problem © 2014 Raible Designs 25
- 26. © 2014 Raible Designs
- 27. How to Constrain Choices ‣ 2006: Choose based on the type of app you’re developing ‣ 2010: Choose based on 20 different criteria (the Matrix) ‣ 2013: Narrowed it to 6 - Community / Support - HTML5 - REST - Mobile - Performance - Page Speed © 2014 Raible Designs 27
- 28. Predetermined Constraints ‣ Language ‣ Platform ‣ Application Type © 2014 Raible Designs 28
- 29. Choose the JVM © 2014 Raible Designs 29
- 30. Get Fast Hardware © 2014 Raible Designs 30
- 31. IntelliJ © 2014 Raible Designs 31
- 32. Goals ‣ Pure Web Frameworks ‣ Full Stack Frameworks ‣ SOFEA Frameworks - API Frameworks - JavaScript MVC Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 32
- 33. Full Stack Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 33
- 34. API Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 34
- 35. JavaScript MVC Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 35
- 36. JavaScript MVC Frameworks © 2014 Raible Designs 36
- 37. Pure JVM Web Frameworks ‣ Apache: Wicket, Struts, Sling, Tapestry, Click ‣ GWT: SmartGWT, GXT, Vaadin, Errai ‣ JSF: Mojarra (RI), MyFaces, Tomahawk, IceFaces, RichFaces, PrimeFaces ‣ Spring MVC, Stripes, RIFE, ZK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks#Java © 2014 Raible Designs 37
- 38. Frameworks I’ve Used ‣ Apache: Wicket, Struts, Sling, Tapestry, Click ‣ GWT: SmartGWT, GXT, Vaadin, Errai ‣ JSF: Mojarra, MyFaces, Tomahawk, IceFaces, RichFaces, PrimeFaces ‣ Spring MVC, Stripes, RIFE, ZK © 2014 Raible Designs 38
- 39. Comparison Matrix http://bit.ly/jvm-frameworks-matrix © 2014 Raible Designs 39
- 40. Matrix Results 18 17.5 17 17 17 13.5 15.5 15.5 15 14.5 14.5 14 14 13.5 11.5 9 4.5 © 2014 Raible Designs Lift Fle x F JS ipe s Str y Pla 2 uts Str et Wi ck y est r Tap in Va ad T GW ils Ra rin g Sp Gr ails 0 40
- 41. Matrix Results ‣ Grails (17.5) ‣ GWT (17) ‣ Ruby on Rails (17) ‣ Spring MVC (17) ‣ Vaadin and Tapestry (15.5) ‣ Wicket (15) © 2014 Raible Designs 41
- 42. Weighted Matrix © 2014 Raible Designs 42
- 43. Weighted Results ‣ Grails (90) ‣ Play (87.5) ‣ Spring MVC (85) ‣ Ruby on Rails (82.5) ‣ Vaadin (82.5) ‣ GWT (80) © 2014 Raible Designs 43
- 44. David Pollack’s Lift Ratings ‣ Developer Productivity: Lift gets a 11, Rails gets a 5, most Javabased frameworks get a 1 or less. ‣ Developer Perception: Every web framework gets a 1. ‣ Learning Curve: Lift gets a 2. ‣ Job Trends, yep, it's zero. * Matt's scale is 0-1 and my ratings are on Matt's scale, except mine goes to 11. http://lift.la/my-take-on-matt-raibles-spreadsheet © 2014 Raible Designs 44
- 45. Peter Thomas’s Perfbench ‣ Seam / JSF vs. Wicket Performance Comparison - January 2009: Seam 2.1.1 and Wicket 1.3.5 - Average page response time in milliseconds © 2014 Raible Designs 45
- 46. Peter Thomas’s Perfbench ‣ On the Seam / JSF side, the 20 sessions each take up about 800 KB adding up to around 16 MB total. On the Wicket side the 20 sessions add up to around 1.5 MB. ! ! ‣ + Lots of banter between Peter and Seam developers @ http://bit.ly/3X50Gc © 2014 Raible Designs 46
- 47. Peter Thomas’s Perfbench ‣ Added Tapestry 5 and Grails in September 2009: - Grails was far more productive than Tapestry 5. - Grails still has some ways to go in terms of performance. - Overall, Wicket is fastest, with Tapestry coming a close second. - Wicket takes up the least amount of heap. - Session usage of the Seam + JSF combination is significantly higher compared to the rest. © 2014 Raible Designs 47
- 48. World Wide Wait - Devoxx http://www.parleys.com/d/2942 © 2014 Raible Designs 48
- 49. World Wide Wait - Devoxx © 2014 Raible Designs 49
- 50. World Wide Wait - Devoxx © 2014 Raible Designs 50
- 51. World Wide Wait - Devoxx © 2014 Raible Designs 51
- 52. World Wide Wait - Devoxx © 2014 Raible Designs 52
- 53. InfoQ’s Top 20 © 2014 Raible Designs 53
- 54. devrates.com - by rating © 2014 Raible Designs 54
- 55. devrates.com - popular © 2014 Raible Designs 55
- 56. developer productivity report © 2014 Raible Designs 56
- 57. web frameworks comparison ‣ Rapid Prototyping: Grails and Play ‣ Framework Complexity: Vaadin, GWT and Struts ‣ Ease of Use: Grails and Vaadin ‣ Documentation & Community: Grails and Vaadin ‣ Throughput/Scalability: Play ‣ UX, Look and Feel: Vaadin and GWT ‣ http://bit.ly/1eP5Jgq © 2014 Raible Designs 57
- 58. decision makers guide “If you are going to choose one framework to rule them all, then we recommend Vaadin, Grails or Play as our top 3 choices, but if you want to synergize (ooh, 90s buzz word!) the benefits of multiple frameworks, then Spring plus nearly any other framework we covered (especially GWT, which saw the greatest gains) will yield the best results.” — http://bit.ly/1emanaA © 2014 Raible Designs 58
- 59. ThoughtWorks Technology Radar 2014 © 2014 Raible Designs 59
- 60. ThoughtWorks on JSF “We continue to see teams run into trouble using JSF -- JavaServer Faces -- and are recommending you avoid this technology.” “We think JSF is flawed because it tries to abstract away HTML, CSS and HTTP, exactly the reverse of what modern web frameworks do.” “We are aware of the improvements in JSF 2.0, but think the model is fundamentally broken.” http://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/#/languages-and-frameworks/683 © 2014 Raible Designs 60
- 61. Top JVM Frameworks ‣ Raible Matrix: Grails, GWT, Rails, Spring MVC - Weighted: Grails, Play, Spring MVC, Rails, Vaadin ‣ Peter Thomas: Wicket ‣ InfoQ: Spring MVC, Play, Grails, JSF, Struts ‣ devrates.com: ‣ Grails, PrimeFaces, Vaadin, Tapestry, Rails RebelLabs: Vaadin, Play, Grails, Spring MVC © 2014 Raible Designs 61
- 62. Raible’s Recommendations ‣ Full Stack: Choose by language (Ruby, Groovy, Java, or Scala) ‣ Pure Web Framework: Spring MVC, Struts 2, Tapestry, Wicket, or Vaadin ‣ JavaScript MVC: Angular JS, Ember, or Backbone ‣ API Framework: Dropwizard or Spring Boot © 2014 Raible Designs 62
- 63. The Problem with GWT © 2014 Raible Designs 63
- 64. Comparison Statistics ‣ Elimination Criteria - At least 1 release in 2013 - At least 1 book on Amazon - At least 10 jobs on dice.com - At least 250 questions on Stack Overflow © 2014 Raible Designs 64
- 65. Jobs on Dice.com Full Stack Frameworks, February 2014 300 225 150 75 o g Ro t Lif ay Pl JR ub yo Sp rin n Gr Ra ail ils s 0 © 2014 Raible Designs 65
- 66. Jobs on Dice.com Pure Web Frameworks, February 2014 600 450 300 150 © 2014 Raible Designs try es Ta p din Va a es ac Pr im eF ick et W 2 ts ru St Sp rin g M VC 0 66
- 67. Jobs on Dice.com JavaScript MVC Frameworks, February 2014 500 375 250 125 © 2014 Raible Designs be r Em lar gu An Ba ck bo n e 0 67
- 68. Jobs on Dice.com JavaScript MVC Frameworks, March 2013 300 225 150 75 © 2014 Raible Designs be r Em lar gu An Ba ck bo n e 0 68
- 69. Jobs on Dice.com JVM API Frameworks, February 2014 600 450 300 150 © 2014 Raible Designs rd za Dr op wi x rt. ve sy Ea ST RE CX F he Ap ac Je rse y 0 69
- 70. LinkedIn Skills Full Stack Frameworks, February 2014 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 Ra t JR ub yo n Lif ils o Ro g Sp rin ay Pl Gr ail s 0 © 2014 Raible Designs 70
- 71. LinkedIn Skills Pure Web Frameworks, February 2014 22,000 16,500 11,000 5,500 © 2014 Raible Designs try es Ta p din Va a ick et W 2 ts ru St es ac Pr im eF Sp rin g M VC 0 71
- 72. LinkedIn Skills JavaScript MVC Frameworks, February 2014 30,000 22,500 15,000 7,500 © 2014 Raible Designs be r Em lar gu An Ba ck bo n e 0 72
- 73. LinkedIn Skills JVM API Frameworks, February 2014 50,000 37,500 25,000 12,500 © 2014 Raible Designs x rt. ve rd za Dr op wi sy Ea ST RE CX F he Ap ac Je rse y 0 73
- 74. Google Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 74
- 75. Google Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 75
- 76. Google Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 76
- 77. Google Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 77
- 78. Indeed Job Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 78
- 79. Indeed Job Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 79
- 80. Indeed Job Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 80
- 81. Indeed Job Trends © 2014 Raible Designs 81
- 82. Mailing List Traffic January 2014 1152 AngularJS 794 Play 706 Grails 590 549 Jersey Wicket 361 336 Lift Apache CXF 238 Tapestry 135 Struts 107 Backbone.js 42 Dropwizard 0 300 600 900 1200 * Frameworks not listed here use Forums, which don’t provide this data. © 2014 Raible Designs 82
- 83. StackOverflow Tagged Questions (February 3, 2014) 16,000 12,000 8,000 4,000 0 Grails Play Lift © 2014 Raible Designs Spring Roo JRuby on Rails 83
- 84. StackOverflow Tagged Questions (February 3, 2014) 16,000 12,000 8,000 4,000 0 Spring MVC PrimeFaces Struts 2 © 2014 Raible Designs Wicket Vaadin Tapestry 84
- 85. StackOverflow Tagged Questions (February 3, 2014) 24,000 18,000 12,000 6,000 0 Backbone.js Angular JS © 2014 Raible Designs Ember.js 85
- 86. StackOverflow Tagged Questions (February 3, 2014) 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 Jersey Apache CXF RESTEasy © 2014 Raible Designs Dropwizard Spring Boot vert.x 86
- 87. Java Developers “Java remains – in spite of the fragmented programming language landscape – a viable, growing language.” http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2012/02/08/language-rankings-2-2012/ © 2014 Raible Designs 87
- 88. Modern Principles © 2014 Raible Designs 88
- 89. The Modern JVM Web Developer ‣ Starts with Fast Hardware ‣ Uses IntelliJ IDEA ‣ Leverages JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3 ‣ Creates High Performance Web Sites ‣ For Mobile Devices ‣ In the Cloud ‣ And cares about Security © 2014 Raible Designs 89
- 90. Developer Productivity http://zeroturnaround.com/blog/ developer-productivity-report-part-1-developer-timesheet/ © 2014 Raible Designs 90
- 91. Developer Productivity http://zeroturnaround.com/blog/ developer-productivity-report-part-3-developer-efficiency/ © 2014 Raible Designs 91
- 92. There is no “best” framework Just lots of awesome choices... © 2014 Raible Designs 92
- 93. Don’t listen to me! © 2014 Raible Designs 93
- 94. Choose your own! ‣ Prioritize a list of goals that are important to your application. ‣ Pick 3-4 frameworks and do a spike with each, developing the same application. ‣ Document and rank each framework against your list of goals. ‣ Calculate and choose! ‣ Don’t be a Picker. © 2014 Raible Designs 94