Question

What do you think/use for interface layer? The “backing” layer will be Spring 3.
The criteria are :

• Your private opinion
• Components
• Documentation
• AJAX Integration
• Browser support
• Community
• Tool support (Eclipse, NetBeans)

I found some comparison topics but it was about 2007 and old versions.

Answer 1

I’d prefer RichFaces. But have in mind that you can use all of them at once, if you need a certain component.

I haven’t used the other two, but I have looked into them in details in order to choose.

• components – richfaces has just more components than others. And in my non-designer opinion, trinidad components are a bit ugly 🙂
• documentation – all good
• ajax integration – richfaces has pretty powerful ajax capabilities which were at the core of the ones introduced in JSF 2.0
• browser compatibility – all have minor problems, no way to avoid that.
• community – you’ll find suitable answers for most of your questions on their forums, or here
• tools – you don’t need those, but a generic JSF tool suits them all

That said, you can also take a look at Primefaces – it has really good components as well. And to emphasize this – all component libraries can be used together.