Question

I think answer on my question is NO. But still, I’m wondering is it possible to run gwt applicaton as frontend for example on Apache HTTPD server. The idea that compiled gwt is pure javascript and don’t need java backend (if we don’t use java based RPC)

Answer 1

There’s nothing stopping you. GWT code breaks down into two parts; server-side and client-side code. As you say the client-side code compiles down into pure javascript which can be easily served up by httpd.

The main advantage of using gwt’s classes on the server is that data you request via RPC will arrive in your client code as java objects with no work on your part. But you can easily make calls to any old service using the RequestBuilder class, or XMLHttpRequest if you need more control.

Edit: There is one special bit of configuration you should do to make sure httpd works well with your client-side gwt code:

<Files *.nocache.*>
    ExpiresDefault "access"
</Files>
<Files *.cache.*>
    ExpiresDefault "now plus 6 months"
</Files>

This makes sure that when you upload a new version of the app users’ browsers will download it automatically, but also makes sure that they won’t download the entire app every time they visit your website. Very useful.