What Java enterprise frameworks to choose for your project
This research will review some of the top Java enterprise frameworks. First off, let’s find out what a framework means. Software frameworks are used to build APIs and other services for the web, for example. It is considered that frameworks can ease the work of developers. Among the helpful things, frameworks offer is the ability to use libraries and databases, and the ability to use both dynamic and static sites. Below are Java enterprise frameworks that might be of interest to DICEUS blog readers.
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What is actually an enterprise web application?
An enterprise app is all about business solutions. In the modern professional workplace, enterprise applications are sophisticated, adaptable, scalable, and goal-focused. They can be delivered to various platforms crosswise over corporate systems, intranets, or the Internet. They are information-driven, easy to use, and should meet stringent prerequisites for security, organization, maintenance, etc. To put it plainly, they are exceptionally intricate frameworks.
All you should know about ERP software development: How to successfully implement an ERP system?
Building enterprise applications implies fulfilling hundreds or thousands of particular needs. In addition, each framework choice you make to fulfill every need influences numerous requirements, regularly in ways that are hard to comprehend or foresee — and the inability to meet any of these prerequisites can mean the failure of the whole task! So, if you are looking for the best match framework for your enterprise solution, keep reading to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the 10 top web application development tools.
Framework 1 — JSF (JavaServer Faces) —Java web application framework
JavaServer Faces is another popular framework supported by Oracle. It is easy to as Oracle has provided clear guidelines. Among the key advantages of the framework, there are rich libraries and tools. It also uses server pages and supports Facelets & XUL.
- Advantage: Convenient for engineers using IDE
- Disadvantage: Requires prior skills in web development with Java
Framework 2 — Wicket — A framework for Java enterprise application
Apache Wicket is in the list of 10 top server-side stacks, open source, and components oriented. There is no need to have distorted HTML pages as it requires inserting special syntax into HTML code. Wicket supports HTML templates by using the namespace following XHTML standard.
Advantages:
- The code is written in Java
- Zero XML configuration files
- No back-button problems
- POJO-centric programming
- Easy to build bookmarkable pages
- Testability of constituents
Disadvantages:
- Confusing development
- The event-based design increases the chances of code mess
Framework 3 — Struts for enterprise web application development
Struts is a collection of interfaces and classes working together to solve particular issues. This stack uses the MVC pattern .NET framework included in Struts 2 is a common achievement of several communities. Dynamic responses can be easily built with this stack. Below are other advantages of the Struts framework:
Advantages:
- Internal organization architecture to manage and create MVC web apps
- Integrated support for I-18-N
- Constructed in extension validation and authentication
- Modules/add-ons availability
Disadvantages:
- Non-flexible
- Imposes coding and designing
Framework 4 — Hibernate
Hibernate is on the list of top ten Java enterprise frameworks. It deals with the object-relational impedance incongruity problems and resolves those by changing the direct database for high-level object controlling features.
Advantages:
- Connectivity with any database by slightly changing the code
- Database independent
- Caching tools
- Low data loss risks
- N+1 or Sluggish loading support
Disadvantages:
- If the power goes off, you can lose information
- Slow restarting
Framework 5 — GWT (Google Web Toolkit)
GWT is a set of open source tools for developing sophisticated front-end solutions. It is characterized by internalization, cross-browser portability, history management, remote calls, and UI abstraction as well.
Advantages:
- Easy to study for beginners
- Perfect for building responsive web apps with heavy lifting on the client-side and decreasing the load on server-side
- Libraries making experts appreciate the true power of GWT
- Built-in IDE support to directly refactor Java cryptogram/code
Disadvantages:
- Due to the fast evolution of GWT, you may not get all interfaces and functions
- Slow compilation. There’s a need to use the proprietary method to define the structure
Framework 6 — Play
Developers use Play to create Scala- and Java-based web apps. Its architecture is light, web-friendly, and stateless. Built on Akka, the framework offers minimal resource consumption and high scalability. It is easy to edit text here. The play uses a completely asynchronous model to create web and mobile apps.
Advantages:
- Enhances the productivity of developers
- Fast reload for config changes, templates, and code
- Designed on Netty, supports non-blocking I/O
- Open source
- Zenexity and Typesafe offer commercial support
- Handles errors in dev mode for runtime and compiles errors
- Scalable
Disadvantages:
- Play 2 is basically a rewrite of Play 1
- Built around I/O async
Framework 7 — Vaadin
Vaadin is an Apache-licensed open source stack for Internet apps. It has a cohesive community all over the world. Ajax can run on the browser side to ensure interactive UX. The Vaadin framework can be extended with GWT.
Advantages:
- Server-side
- Layout, listeners, and component types
- Plug-in support
- Easy integration with Java Spring framework
Disadvantages:
- Multi-window support is not available
- The volume of JavaScript code grows large
Framework 8 — Grails
Grails is included in our list of frameworks aimed to improve the effectiveness of Java developers towards sensible defaults, convention-over-configuration, opinionated APIs, etc. It is integrated with JVM and enables developers to work more efficiently while providing rich features, including run-time and domain-specific languages, asynchronous coding, and meta-programming.
Advantages:
- Perfect for dealing with S&M projects
- Quick development cycle
- Many plug-ins to simplify the job
- Clear documentation
- Simple setup process
- Simple GORM
- See changes by hitting a refresh button
- Easy to manage CSS
- Dynamic configuration feature to change configuration without restarting your server
Disadvantages:
- Runtime language
- Difficult to work on the multi-threaded application
Framework 9 — Vert.x
Vert.x is an event-driven framework that runs on the JVM. Eclipse Vert.x is non-blocking and event-driven to handle lots of concurrency with the help of kernel threads. It helps your app to scale with negligible hardware. It is easy to use with many languages, such as Ruby, Ceylon, Groovy, JavaScript, Java, etc.
Advantages:
- Easy set-up process
- Install an isolated container
- Special thread in the Vert.x container
- Clear methods and objects for non-blocking
Disadvantages:
- Low scalability
- Can be confusing to pick up a proper language
Framework 10 — Spring MVC (Model View Controller)
Spring MVC is used for the development of numerous web applications providing a complete toolkit for configuring the apps. It is widely used for security projects. A well-designed ecosystem makes this framework extremely popular among developers. It includes many add-ons like SOAP services, REST APIs, and security authentication.
Advantages:
The features that make Spring suited for web development:
- Improved modules for a better code readability
- Clear injection for testing test data through POJOs
- Flexibility to use dependency injection
- Loose coupling within modules
Disadvantages:
There is a couple of disadvantages of the framework:
- Difficult for beginners
- Not easy to study
Read more: A compelling report on Java vs PHP for enterprise applications
What else to consider while choosing between Java enterprise frameworks?
Before choosing a framework, you should ask several questions:
- Does the framework of your choosing cope with the tasks that are essential to the development of an application you are to develop?
- Does the stack have a cohesive community to support it?
- How much does it cost?
- How easy is it to study the framework for beginners?
Price
The price is a determinate factor when choosing the framework. But a cost is as important as the community and popularity of the technology of your choosing. You will need experts to develop an application using the chosen framework, QA engineers to test the app, and specialists to provide maintenance or reengineering in case you need it.
License
When it comes to starting a new project with a framework, make sure what type of license it is distributed under. While most licenses are pretty liberal to work with and let you create commercial applications, some of them are not so generous. The last thing you’d want is to create an entire application only to find out that the license doesn’t allow you to distribute it commercially. Better conduct in-depth research before than suffering after. Do note that this isn’t limited to the framework alone. The plugin or extension you made use of for the extra functionality may have a hidden clause.
Scalability and flexibility
Developers and programmers don’t worry about the flexibility and scalability of frameworks. Oftentimes, I/O and network latency are often the problems rather than framework scalability. If someone asks you to lay off a framework pointing out scaling problems, disregard them. The framework is rarely the reason for the scaling issue. Sure, you could optimize the code a little bit, but often the brunt of the scaling issue lies elsewhere.
Documentation
Documentation is often a key thing to a successful implementation of the solution. Well-structured and detailed documentation draws in the power users and evangelists, who then bring in more people. With unclear documentation, people are going to just walk off confused and annoyed. Search for a framework that has thorough documentation with lots of examples, snippets, sample code, articles, and tutorials.
Inevitably, even with proper documentation, you are going to run into errors to rectify, you are going to have to ask the community behind the framework for help. Very often, developers interact with a community that vitriolically attacks programmers new to the framework and sneers at them while on the other extreme. Some communities cheerfully welcome newbies and teach them the tricks of the profession.
Communities
Communities make or break the framework. Too snobby, and you’ll resent the framework instead of the people. Well mannered, and you’ll gravitate towards the framework. Choose a framework that has a friendly community that helps developers new to the platform.
Bugs
One reason web designers are modest to simply create their own stacks is the way that only they are accountable for settling the bugs and updates. With a major structure, you actually have a great many developers filtering through the code and dragging it through hellfire once a day. Bugs, if and when they are found, are squashed as quickly as time permits.
Security
Choose a framework that isn’t sluggish. Anybody wants hackers to tell you that there are security vulnerabilities in the framework through a page he hacked on your site. You’d rather hear that from the framework developers, hopefully with a link to a patch to the issue. So, pick up the framework that is updated regularly, is open to the bugs, and, more importantly, fixes the bugs people come across.
While a framework covers all of the important bases of an application, chances are, you’ll still have to write a bunch of code. Make it generic enough, and you can repurpose it into a component suitable for reuse in your other applications or, even better, release it to the general public, so they make use of it in their applications.
Pick a stack that gives you a chance to broaden the system effortlessly. For example, with CakePHP, broadening a controller is dealt with by parts and perspectives by assistants. In either case, making an extension is as basic as characterizing another class that acquires from a parent base class.
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Also, while selecting Java enterprise frameworks, likewise remember the accessibility of modules. Regularly you won’t have enough time to make a custom extension without any preparation. Having an enormous pool of extensions to browse significantly eases this issue. Thus, pick not by the number of extensions but rather by their quality.
To sum it up, we reviewed all the aspects you should consider before selecting Java enterprise frameworks. We looked at everything from mapping out whether it’d suit your purposes to bug fixes and updates.
