Overview of popular open-source Ajax toolkits

InfoWorld’s Peter Wayner wrote an good overview of the most popular open-source toolkits, including a helpful screencast about each. Specifically, he covers:

* [Dojo][Dojo] _([screencast][Dojo screencast])_
* [Google Web Toolkit (GWT)][GWT] _([screencast][GWT screencast])_
* [Microsoft Atlas][Atlas] _([screencast][YUI screencast])_
* [Rico][Rico] _([screencast][Rico screencast])_
* [Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)][YUI] _([screencast][YUI screencast])_
* [Zimbra Kabuki Ajax Toolkit][Kabuki] _([screencast][Kabuki screencast])_

Which to use? Well, GWT is dependent on Java, which makes it a **non-starter** for everyone I know. Atlas (not surprisingly?) **doesn’t play well with others** — there are Firefox or Safari compability issues, and although the _client_ part is technology-agnostic, the _server_ part is ASP.NET. Rico is neat, but less complete. Kabuki looks interesting, but it’s also missing interesting features.

That leaves us with **[Dojo][Dojo]** and **[YUI][YUI]**. You can’t go wrong with either, and any time you spend learning them now will pay off for years to come. I believe these two toolkits will evolve into the dominant frameworks for standards-based client development.

I personally use and recommend YUI because of its feature set, it’s excellent documentation (including Web 2.0 UI patterns), and the excellent support you can get directly from its developers on via the [Yahoo! JavaScript Developer Group][YUI list] mailing list.

* [InfoWorld: Surveying open-source AJAX toolkits][InfoWorld]

[InfoWorld]: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/07/31/31FEajax_1.html
[Dojo]: http://dojotoolkit.org/
[Dojo screencast]: http://www.infoworld.com/video/archives/2006/07/screencast_ajax.html
[GWT]: http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/
[GWT screencast]: http://www.infoworld.com/video/archives/2006/07/screencast_goog.html
[Atlas]: http://atlas.asp.net/
[Atlas screencast]: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/screenroom/atlas_flv.html
[Rico]: http://openrico.org/
[Rico screencast]: http://www.infoworld.com/video/archives/2006/07/screencast_rico.html
[YUI]: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/
[YUI screencast]: http://www.infoworld.com/video/archives/2006/07/screencast_yaho.html
[YUI list]: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ydn-javascript/
[Kabuki]: http://www.zimbra.com/community/kabuki_ajax_toolkit_download.html
[Kabuki screencast]: http://www.infoworld.com/video/archives/2006/07/screencast_zimb.html


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