Nitobi Complete UI - Commercial Ajax Component Suite

Dietrich Kappe, Monday, May 21, 2007 @ 4:17 am

There are a number of commercial vendors flogging Ajax "solutions": Backbase, Morfiks, etc. Nitobi doesn't want to be your all and everything solution; they just want to sell you components. They've just announced the latest update of their Complete UI for Java. What new features does this update offer? From their site:

1. Eclipse IDE Support. Easily add Nitobi components to your Eclipse project using the Web Tools Platform (WTP). Drag and drop support into your code for quick templating of component configurations. All the JavaScript, and CSS includes and setup is masked from the developer.
2. Convenient JSP Taglibs. Easily add ajax to your project by shortcutting all the gruntwork of including JavaScript, and CSS files, and writing initialization code.
3. Improved Servlet Support . Simplified Java API makes binding to servlets a snap. Included demos show how it's done.
4. Hibernate. Improved API simplifies databinding to POJOs used with Hibernate.
5. Struts 1.x, 2.x Support. Improved Server API makes using Ajax components in a Struts environment straightforward.
6. Spring Framework Support. Samples and support documentation facilitate smooth integration of Nitobi components with Spring-based applications.

In short, they try to make it easy for you to integrate their components in whatever you are building. In fact, the same components will work with .NET, PHP, etc., except that you get a different set of goodies to make integrating them with those platforms easy.

Scratching under the surface, they offer 6 highly configurable, skinnable components:

1. Grid
2. Combobox
3. Tabstrip
4. Tree
5. Fisheye
6. Callout

Nitobi advertises 7 components, but one of them is essentially a Javascript utility library and not an actual UI component. You can explore the workings of these components in their online explorer demo. One component in particular -- the data grid -- has gotten good reviews.

The most most impressive commercial DataGrid in my opinion is the nitobi Grid at www.nitobi.com but it's not exactly cheap.

The above entry (dated from November of 2006) does a fair job comparing a few Ajax data grid components. Another good source on Ajax data grids is the Ajax Patterns wiki, which states that

[Nitobi's Data Grid] allows viewing and editing of tabular data in web page. One interesting and unique feature is the ability to cut-and-paste content from Excel, and when you do this, it's possible to retain the original formatting (boldfacing, etc.). Nitobi Grid also has other powerful Ajax features such as column resizing, keyboard navigation, inline editing, live scrolling and auto-saving.

Now why should you pay for what you can already get for free? After all, you can get most every component in the list above from several different frameworks. The answer to this question is complicated, but the way of arriving at it is clear: you should evaluate open source and commercial alternatives according to the same yardstick. I wrote an article about evaluating open source software a few years ago, and the same principles still apply. Here is a sampling of some of the questions you should ask:

• Are you going to sell your software as a product or a service? Are the open source licenses of your components compatible with that strategy?
• Do you need legal recourse in case of software defects? Consider that a small commercial company may provide only the illusion of protection.
• What is your supportability horizon? Again, a vital open source project may provide better protection here than a small commercial company.
• What is your budget for development and support? "Free as in speech" doesn't mean it won't cost you anything over the lifetime of the project.

Commercial Ajax component vendors are here to stay. Competition between them and open source projects is a good thing.

Technorati : ajax, data grid, dojo, nitobi, rico

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Comments: 1 so far

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1. 

   Hi Dietrich,

   Thanks very much for the write up and compliments. I like your points at the end about security vendor lock-in type issues. We’re moving out toolkit to an OS license and public repository to help with this. We hope that having that plus professional support will provide a good balance for our customers. If there’s anything I can do to help further with your reviews in the form of licenses, questions or interview arrangements please let me know.

   Thanks again!

   Comment by Andre Charland, Wednesday, May 23, 2007 @ 2:03 am

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