Ajax Frameworks and Libraries

Appendix. Ajax Frameworks and Libraries

An explosion of libraries and frameworks has been one of the fortunate consequences of the Ajax phenomenon. They come in all shapes and sizes and in any licensing model you'd care to name. Throughout the Ajax Patterns, the importance of using frameworks and libraries has been emphasizedit's worth knowing the low-level details, but often not worth implementing them yourself. For this reason, the listing here makes a good companion to the Ajax Patterns.

The initial list was published back in June 2005, when I documented what seemed like an overwhelming 20 products. Maintained in an openly editable wiki, it's blossomed to 160-odd products, and doubtless many still to comestay tuned to http://ajaxpatterns.org/Ajax_Frameworks for the latest updates.

Some of these were around long before Ajax was "Ajax," but all are here because they support Ajax development. This section is a lightly edited snapshot of the wiki in January 2006many of the descriptions come straight from project owners and users. It begins with two sections on pure JavaScript frameworks, where you have to provide your own server-side integration. Following that are frameworks for a large number of server-side environments, many including some JavaScript library API as well as a server-side API. Note that there's a multilanguage section, since some frameworks address multiple server-side environments. Therefore, consult the multilanguage section in addition to the section for any particular server-side environment you're interested in.

People getting into Ajax often ask me for a "quick-fix" framework to help get started. So at risk of offending many worthy projects, each section points out a few of the frameworks that have generated buzz. This is, of course, a subjective measure, and it is one of popularity more than intrinsic value; do investigate further for any serious development work. In addition, look at the patterns, many of which discuss specific frameworks.