Sencha or Kendo???

[walter]

Hello!
I have to make a choice on a HTML5 framework to use , to build a similar Desktop application and mobile application in which I can manage several sub-applications.
I am trying to understand which is the 'best' framwork between Sencha Extjs 4 and Kendo UI.

Because I am new to this world I want to ask you which are the teknical quality of the two frameworks and why I have to choose one or the other.

I have use Extjs 4 and I like it ,i am not for one or for the other but I am only asking which differences there are between them.

I wait for some answer.

Thanks a lot.

[Walter]

I need the same answer for a project wich involved data presentation and manipulation

[Burke]

Hi Walter and Walter

Full disclosure: I work for Kendo UI.  This means that I'm partial and I know quite a bit more about Kendo UI than I do Sencha.

That being said, let me tell you what I do know about Kendo UI and where it really shines.  Hopefully this will help you make your decision in picking the product that is right for your project.

Kendo UI is a complete package.  It's everything you need for rich HTML5 web, mobile and data visualization.

Kendo UI is heavily invested in HTML5. This means that we do feature detection under the covers so that you always get the best that your current browser can offer you      while still providing a beautiful UI for users on older browsers.  For instance, Kendo UI will check for touch events and click events, it will use SVG where it can and fall back to VML in older version of IE, and it will always animate with CSS3 if available.

Kendo UI is built on jQuery.  If you are more familiar with the jQuery $, then Kendo UI is going to be very comfortable for you.

Kendo UI mobile has adaptive rendering which will emulate the UI on devices without you having to change anything.  This means you can truly write your mobile app once and have it look native everywhere.

Kendo UI is engineered to be lightweight and extremely fast.  There has always been a focus on speed from day 1, all the way from the UI widgets, down to the core of the framework where the templates and MVVM framework live.

Kendo UI Iterates very quickly.  We have 3 major releases a year and a service pack in between each one.  This means more features for you, more improvements on existing features, and the ability to address concerns from our user base very quickly.

You should choose the platform that's right for your project.  We believe that Kendo UI is the best HTML5 platform for web, mobile and rich charting, but we are not as objective given the fact that we created it :).  Good luck and please let us know if there is anything that you find missing from Kendo UI that you would like to see by visiting our User Voice site.

Cheers!

Burke

[HR]

Hi Burke,

One important thing that laks Kendo UI and where Sencha JS is winning is the layout options for new web-apps. For example the layout options and the overall look and feel of the total web, not only the widgets. When Kendo UI is going to work on that, it will be a more competitive battle 'over-all'. At this moment both Sencha and Kendo UI has their advantages and disadvantages.

Besides that, there is a price issue ofcourse (not a real big one if you ask me, but ok..)

ExtJS = $329.00 without support (with support: $595.00)
Kendo UI = $699.00 (you need both packages (dataviz and web) to compete. And because the total package is cheaper, that would do the trick.

If you ask me now; What would you use for your new projects i would say.. 50/50. (Extjs for layouts, Kendo UI for grids + jQuery). If Kendo UI will handle the layouts just as good (or better) for their library, i would say: 80/20 (for Kendo UI). If ExtJs would improve their Grids etc. i would say 70/30 for ExtJS.

Just my 0,02

[edit] so thus in the end.. Kendo UI is atm on winning hand ;-)

[Bernard]

As far as layout is concerned, I'm actually pretty satisfied that KendoUI did NOT include it. I feel that there should be a balance as to how much weight should UI solution add to the stack, and right now I do believe that KendoUI bundle is very manageable without being too intrusive. For layout needs I use Bootstrap or 960.gs which is much better and well supported on it's own.

As for pricing - I personally feel that open-source version is good enough for me and I'm capable enough to customize and extend it as needed, but if more challenging tasks arise - I wouldn't mind paying for the support ;).

MVVM of KendoUI is probably the most alluring feature that I simply can't find in Sencha, this feature alone is the reason I would go with it. Just the raw number of lines of code you would save by writing imperative bindings is huge, not to mention cleaner and more intuitive.

[sitefinitysteve]

+1 Bernard, and kendo MVVM is way nicer to use than knockout, much better with handling remote JSON (no extra mapping plugin, then manually converting to observables, yada yada)