Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX (Atlas Framework) and Ajaxium - What's the difference?
Many people heard about
Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX (Atlas). However Atlas has some limitations
and disadvantages in comparison to Ajaxium.
To begin with, Atlas employs a client-side development concept. This concept is
based essentially on fetching data directly from Web Services and performs content
update using client-side controls and rendering templates and libraries. It's an
interesting concept if you like the idea of client-side rendering, especially so
in view of Atlas' powerful set of JavaScript controls. But there is little if anything
left of the classic and convenient ASP.NET paradigm if you plan to build your application
with a wider use of the client-side Atlas features. And this is where the client-side
development concept imperfections come to the surface:
- Developers have to master not only a new approach to the ASP.NET, but also learn
about the difference in JavaScript coding used in different browsers.
- The concept is based on a heavy use of JavaScript, so there is no way making the
website built with the help of Atlas that is accessible to search engines. This
is acceptable for intranet applications, but totally unacceptable for public portals
and websites.
- As is the case with AJAX frameworks, Atlas requires a huge amount of JavaScript
code to be loaded. So the website loading time may increase very significantly.
It may be of little concern for users armed with fast ADSL/T1 connections - not
so for mobile users who get connected to the Internet via GPRS or modem.
- It is cumbersome to extend existing controls if you need to add more features. The
complexity of the development increases with each and every web browser you want
to support.
- The client-side code often becomes a mix of UI logic and business code, this slows
down development work and makes the whole application vulnerable to malicious visitors.
- Atlas (as well as other AJAX frameworks) does not support a smooth transfer from
one ASP.NET page to another. So if you want to develop a complete Web 2.0 application,
you have to bundle everything away on only one ASP.NET page. This impairs web application
maintainability and drags down developers' productivity.
Since Atlas client-side development concept is very close to the traditional approach
employed in AJAX applications, most of the points of the AJAX vs Ajaxium comparison
chart can be just as well applied to Atlas.
In addition to a complete client-side controls suite, Atlas provides UpdatePanel
control which is built on similar ideas and comes quite close to Ajaxium. However,
Ajaxium contains a set of unique features which set it apart not only from Atlas
UpdatePanel, but also from all callback-based containers marketed by other vendors:
- Ajaxium handles a smooth transfer from one ASP.NET page to another, so entire websites
can be easily AJAX-ed.
- Ajaxium determines changes in JavaScripts embedded into the HTML page. If a browser
doesn't handle embedded scripts dynamic update, Ajaxium still maintains page validity
and performs rewriting of the entire document without additional requests to the
server.
- Ajaxium comes with unique Intelligent Performance Advisor - a component which
analyses efficiency of the page update and shows tips and links to manual pages
if an inefficient update of the page content has been detected (read more about
Intelligent Performance Advisor).
- Ajaxium supports ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1, so it makes it the best option for Ajax-ing
existing ASP.NET 1.x websites. Atlas will be released for ASP.NET 2.0 only.
- Ajaxium does not rely on the set of containers defined explicitly. It always analyzes
all the changes occurring on the web page, and performs a minimal set of operations
required to reflect all these changes. So developers will never have to trace bugs
if some page parts don't get updated because they were not added to the list of
updating controls.
And last but not least, Ajaxium is easier in use and consumes less traffic than
huge AJAX frameworks like Atlas. Just try it to Ajax any existing website or simply
run our real-time demo to see for yourself what Ajaxium can do.
Where to go next?
Since there are a lot of commercial AJAX frameworks for ASP.NET around, we recommend
to read the article Ajaxium - a unique transformer of default and custom ASP.NET controls into a complete AJAX framework to see how Ajaxium could benefit you and your business.
You may also visit our corporate section to understand what your company stands
to gain from Ajaxium, including benefits and opportunities made available.
You may also take a look at the Ajaxium Introduces Intelligent Performance Advisor
section, which shows how Ajaxium helps not only to add AJAX features, but also optimize
content updates and improve user experience.
