VERDICT: Yes, within a week
The feedback we constantly receive in this debate centers around the concept of productivity and what that means to large corporations. To further compare and contrast this page has been set-up to outline the reasons why ZK has been chosen in over 100 Fortune 500 companies in place of GWT.
In the Java web development world productivity is an important topic and can mean the difference between an Ajax Web development failure and a development success. Rich Ajax GUIs using traditional Java web development tools can take time to produce which is where enterprise Ajax frameworks comes into play.
What are the potential GWT problems facing developers?
Is GWT compilation taking way too long?
This is a big issue our users constantly talk about. Many people have informed us that they started to create GWT enterprise projects only to find that GWT’s compile time spirals out of control.
Are your GWT backend services still requiring communication implementations?
A lot of people complain about the unnecessary and tedious implementation of complex GWT backend services using GWT RPC, GWT’s JSON and GWT’s XML. In larger systems without excessive development time it is easy to clog the network due to an excessive amount of data marshalling between the browser and server.
Do you enjoy GWT’s MVC pattern and the GWT UI Binder?
Some people enjoy SWING style web application development, and some people do not. Therefore GWT introduced the GWT UI Binder. Many people have reported that both do not provide the separation of logic they require.
Are you comfortable with your logic being exposed at the browser?
People often talk about GWT security concerns, for example, even thought the GWT code is obfuscated, it is still exposed client-side. It is still possible to reverse engineer client-side business logic to exploit your system. In addition reverse engineering of GWT RPC can expose sensitive data.
Let's see what ZK does differently!
The obvious question is what does ZK have that betters GWT? Fair question, below contains the reasons why our users have chosen ZK over GWT for the productivity boost we offer.
Fast compilation, fast development cycle in Java!
Like GWT, code is written in Java with no need for JavaScript. Unlike the GWT compilation process ZK’s output is Java byte code not JavaScript meaning the compilation process is as fast as you have come to expect from Java. In addition the full range of Java libraries are available to you. You are not limited in any way!
Productive Server+client Fusion architecture!
Our architecture enables direct control over server-side resources without the need to implement any communication layer. In addition, no additional backend services need to be implemented as you have direct access to server-side resources such as web services and databases. With this direct control at the server you are still maintain 100% control over the client not only when creating components but also writing web applications.
Powerful Data-binding and MVC!
ZK provides a very powerful markup language named ZUML which enables you to describe your interface using XML. This XML also enables you to bind data to your interface without the need to write a single line of Java code. If you do not want to use XML based interfaces the Swing route is open to you. ZK MVC’s approach can encompass either XML or Swing philosophies. Combined with Spring, CDI, Hibernate and JPA this can provide very powerful separation of your view, business logic and model.
Robust enterprise security!
ZK architecture protects your business logic by not exposing it to the browser. In addition it is designed to protect against XSS and CSRF attacks which can potentially be devastating to large enterprise base systems and their data. The architecture was built from the ground up to provide enterprise-grade safeguards that your applications can rely on.
