Frameworks comparation: Lift, Play and Wicket

Question

What are the advantages and disadvantages of frameworks Lift, Play and Wicket? What characteristics are best or only supported by each?

Thanks

@niels Yes Another feature, besides those cited in the question, is enabling a good separation of the layers of the system. The framework that I liked was the Wicket. If necessary I will make a custom bracket to use it with Scala. — adelarsq, Oct 24 '10 at 13:05

score 60 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

Play:

Lightweight Java-based framework, with Scala support available as an extra.

very good for rapid prototyping, fast-feedback-loop kind of work. Embeds the compiler, so you just edit source code in place and pages get immediately updated. Learning curve is shallow.

Wicket:

Stateful Java-based framework, with Scala support available as an extra.

Shallower learning curve into Scala, especially if you already have wicket experience. Good separation of concerns, POJO-based model. Arguably one of the best Java web frameworks currently available.

Lift:

Stateful native-Scala framework. Deep Scala integration, so no need to generate bean setter/getter methods or worry about interop between Java/Scala collections. Fully embraces functional-programming concepts, such as immutability and closures.

Also the steepest learning-curve of the three. One common piece of advice is therefore to learn the Scala language before getting started with Lift, especially if you come from a Java background.

Others:

There are also other Scala-based frameworks available (such as Scalatra and Pinky) for web development, though not as well-known as Lift. It wouldn't hurt to check these out as well!

For more information, see this question: What Scala web-frameworks are available?

Hey, thanks! But you do know this'll probably send me on some sort of ego-trip right? — Kevin Wright, Oct 17 '10 at 21:56
@eelco: You can tell which one I haven't used then? I've updated the answer — Kevin Wright, Oct 18 '10 at 08:07
I'm guessing that the description for Play was for Play 1.x, since Play 2 (which came along well after this answer was written) really embraces Scala wholeheartedly (while still supporting Java). — AmigoNico, Nov 15 '12 at 05:25

score 12 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

12

There are many threads that compares these web frameworks for Scala. See

Which is better framework Java/GWT or Scala/Lift?

Lift / Wicket here: Which is better framework Java/GWT or Scala/Lift?

For my next project, a web-app, should use scala+wicket or scala+lift?

How do the Scala based frameworks stack up for a complete Scala newbie - Lift, Play, Circumflex, etc

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

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answered Oct 17 '10 at 16:55

olle kullberg

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You do not have to follow these links. Actually, Kevins answer saiz it all. – olle kullberg Oct 17 '10 at 18:12
These links were very helpful, especially the first. Thanks – adelarsq Oct 18 '10 at 21:20
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No, please, *do* follow the links! My summary was very broad - there's a lot more to learn in the fine print. **I** certainly upvoted this answer. – Kevin Wright Oct 23 '10 at 19:11

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 14 '12 at 21:30

Talking about the advantages of Lift, one should mention Seven Things where Lift really excels. In short:

Lazy Loading
Parallel page rendering
Comet and Ajax
Wiring -- declare interdepencies between page elements
Designer friendly templates
Wizard -- multipage input screens with full back-button support
Security

Just visit the linked page for more details - these features really make Lift unique among competitors.

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 15 '11 at 08:52

Frameworks comparation: Lift, Play and Wicket

4 Answers4