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Top Ajax Technologies and RIA Frameworks

The Gartner RIA Report in 2010 rated 22 Ajax technologies and RIA Frameworks. They define the Ajax/RIA market as "a set of technology offerings oriented to meeting the needs of application development teams to build systems that deliver a rich and responsive user experience."
I was surprised by which technologies were included in the list and those that were not. Some of them are inactive, woefully incomplete, or inaccessible. Other open-source frameworks, like MooTools and Laszlo, that have been around for 5+ years and have active communities, were not listed.
So here is a more comprehensive list of RIA frameworks and Ajax technologies. But instead of rating them by market scope, I rated them on:
  • Completeness of their UI control set, based on the list of essential controls
  • Usability of the controls
  • Aesthetics, based on the default visual design. Now, all of these frameworks/technologies are skinnable, or offer themes, but some are almost impossible to make look good.
I also included links to each of their demo galleries you can explore their offerings.
Reference link:
http://www.developria.com/2011/01/the-gartner-ria-report-in.html

Technology/FrameworkCompletenessUsabilityAesthetics
**Sencha, Ext for JS 100.png5star.png5star.png
**Sencha, Ext for GWT100.png5star.png5star.png
*JQuery, JQuery UI100.png4star.pngvaries
*Adobe Flex 90.png4star.png4star.png
Telerik for .Net, Silverlight, WFP90.png4star.png4star.png
Component Art for .Net, Silverlight, WFP90.png4star.png4star.png
*Oracle ADF90.png4star.png3star.png
Backbase90.png4star.png3star.png
*Mocha UI for MooTools80.png4star.png4star.png
*MooTools80.png4star.pngvaries
SmartClient for GWT80.png4star.png3star.png
*Java FX80.png2star.png2star.png
Infragistics for .Net, WPF, Silverlight80.png3star.png2star.png
*ICEfaces80.png2star.png2star.png
*RichFaces for JSF80.png3star.png2star.png
*Dojo, Dojo X, Dijit70.png4star.png4star.png
*Open Laszlo70.png4star.png4star.png
*MS Silverlight 470.png4star.png4star.png
Visual Web Gui70.png3star.png2star.png
*YUI2, YUI 360.png3star.png3star.png
*ZK60.png3star.png3star.png
Wijmo50.png4star.png4star.png
*Vaadin for GWT50.png4star.png4star.png
Windows Presentation Framework50.png3star.png3star.png
*Apache Pivot50.png3star.png2star.png
*SproutCore40.png4star.png4star.png
*Prototype / *Scriptaculous40.png4star.pngvaries
*JQuery Tools10.png4star.png4star.png
*LivePipe10.png4star.png4star.png
*Jitsu10.png3star.png3star.png
* Open Source, ** Open source and commercial license available.


Here are some applications built with these top rated frameworks:

Sencha/ Ext JS

Zenoss extjs.png

jQuery

Netflix jquery.png

Adobe Flex

Digital Tutors flex.png

MooTools

Vimeo mooTools.png

Dojo

Wavemaker dojo.png

Open Laszlo

Pandora openLaszlo.png

Silverlight

PivotViewer silverlight.png

Sproutcore

OtherInbox sproutcore.png





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