Web Application Framework Compare

Apache Struts framework

Pros:
The “Standard” - lots of Struts jobs
Lots of information and examples
HTML tag library is one of the best

Cons:
ActionForms - they’re a pain
Can’t unit test - StrutsTestCase only does integration
Project has been rumored as “dead”

Spring MVC

Pros:
Lifecyle for overriding binding, validation, etc.
Integrates with many view options seamlessly: JSP/JSTL, Tiles, Velocity, FreeMarker, Excel, XSL, PDF
Inversion of Control makes it easy to test

Cons:
Configuration intensive - lots of XML
Requires writing lots of code in JSPs
Almost too flexible - no common parent Controller

WebWork

Pros:
Simple architecture - easy to extend
Tag Library is easy to customize - backed by Velocity
Interceptors are pretty slick

Cons:
Small Community
Documentation only recently written, few examples
Client-side validation immature

Java Server Faces

Pros:
J2EE Standard - lots of demand and jobs
Fast and easy to develop with
Rich Navigation framework

Cons:
Tag soup for JSPs
Immature technology - doesn’t come with everything
No single source for implementation