Which web app framework would you choose for an enterprise environment?

[Eduardo Yañez Parareda]

Hello, at work we are trying to find a good framework to build enterprise web apps. Nowadays some of our teams are using Seam 2.2.X, others
are using Struts+Spring+JSP+ExtJS, finally there are some using a propietary framework XSL based.

I'm trying to find a good alternative to all of this stuff, it must have a beautiful UI, easy integration with JPA or Hibernate, the generated UI should be
easily modified to admit another javascript library to make effects or to improve the user experience, you know!

I'm more from the old school, I like using a MVC framework like Spring MVC + JSP + JQueryUI for UI, but people in our department seems not very comfortable
with that kind of solution. Others have proposed to use a JavascriptMVC + JQueryUI, or Wicket...

I've been reading a bit from the Wicket's website, but as I haven't work in a real project with it, I don't know how the app will grow in some years, or if the UI will be a mess, etc.

My first priority is the UI because is what the user see and is what the user has to work with... I don't think the controller's layer could be a problem because in the end all frameworks
are similar, and the persistence layer will be JPA or Hibernate so it isn't a problem too...

Any recommendation?

[Sumit Bisht]

For rapid prototyping, I'd prefer Play framework as this has nice UI capabilities. But the use of enterprise applications isn't that much as compared to other mature frameworks. However, most of the teams in my organization use JSF as this is well supported and fits in nicely with different middleware frameworks while giving you an extensible toolset for your UI requirements.
For a better user interface, you can try GWT as it has rich controls for that purpose . I haven't done much work in this yet but have seen applications that have a highly effective UI .

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Sumit Bisht wrote:
For a better user interface, you can try GWT as it has rich controls for that purpose . I haven't done much work in this yet but have seen applications that have a highly effective UI .

Absolutely not!
GWT built-in controls aren't really rich, you can't compare them to suites like RichFaces or/and PrimeFaces.

[Eduardo Yañez Parareda]

Well, after reading a lot of information and talking with colleagues from other companies, my choice is JSF + Facelets (obiously) + Spring (services) + JPA + Hibernate.

The problem now is which JSF components library choose, Richfaces or Primefaces. Currently at the company half of people know Richfaces, the other half has no JSF experience.
That might be a good reason to choose Richfaces, but Primefaces have more components, they seem better for user experience, also have a good documentation,
the themes support is great because is integrated with ThemeRoller from JQueryUI, and after reading about performance, Primefaces beats Richfaces.

On the other hand, Richfaces has a bigger community support, has support from JBoss and Exadel which for a company is an advantage. Are there more reasons
to choose Richfaces over Primefaces?

I have found a lot of articles comparing RicheFaces 3 with Primefaces 2.X, but neither comparing Richfaces 4 vs Primefaces 3, have someone any link or so which
compare those versions?

[Cagatay Civici]

You can get commercial support for PrimeFaces if support is important for your company;

http://www.primefaces.org/support.html

There is also a very active community forum;

http://forum.primefaces.org/

Also check out real life experiences of PrimeFaces Users;

http://www.primefaces.org/testimonials.html

And google trends;

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=PrimeFaces,RichFaces,IceFaces,OpenFaces&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2012&sort=0

Still better thing to do is do a pilot project with candidate technologies during evaluations and decide yourself

[Eduardo Yañez Parareda]

Cagatay Civici wrote:You can get commercial support for PrimeFaces if support is important for your company;

http://www.primefaces.org/support.html

There is also a very active community forum;

http://forum.primefaces.org/

Also check out real life experiences of PrimeFaces Users;

http://www.primefaces.org/testimonials.html

And google trends;

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=PrimeFaces,RichFaces,IceFaces,OpenFaces&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2012&sort=0

Thanks Cagatay, I've already seen all of these resources before posting

Still better thing to do is do a pilot project with candidate technologies during evaluations and decide yourself

Yes, I know it's the best way to evaluate several technologies. I'm working on it, but it'll take me some time :/

How is the best way to work with JSF (Primefaces) for example without using Seam?

I mean I need JPA data binding, history navigation and so on.... I guess the way is using the implicit JSF MVC + Spring + JPA imlpementation like Hibernate or so, am I right?
Is there a better/simpler approach?