Frequently Asked Questions
What is Vaadin?
Vaadin is a Java web application framework. It is designed for creating rich and interactive applications that run in the browser, without any plugins. A server-driven architecture together with reusable component model is used to simplify programming of applications and for better web application security. No HTML, XML or JavaScript necessary and all Java libraries and tools are at your disposal.
How does Vaadin differ from other web frameworks?
Vaadin is designed to build web applications, not just web-sites. This positions it for application rather than website development. The programming model is much the same as in traditional desktop programming, with events and listeners rather than requests and responses. If you have written Swing or SWT-applications, you'll feel right at home with Vaadin. The most significant differences between Vaadin and other web application libraries are summarized in
the comparison matrix.
How does Vaadin differ from GWT?
GWT applications run in the browser, while Vaadin applications run on the server. We do actually use GWT as a "rendering engine" on the browser side, so you can combine Vaadin and GWT.
How does Vaadin differ from Wicket?
While Vaadin has many similarities to Wicket, main differences are the absence of any HTML templates and Vaadin applications are automatically AJAX-enabled since the framework handles all the wiring between the browser and the server-side application.
Is Vaadin like JSF?
From an architectural point of view, both JSF and Vaadin are server-side frameworks. However, Vaadin applications are much richer and programmed in plain Java - no XML configurations or page templates! Also, it is much simpler to use - only a single JAR file and you have all the components there.
Why should I use Vaadin instead of GWT?
Vaadin applications are run on the server and are inherently more secure since the application logic is not exposed to the client-side. By running the application on a real JVM (on the server) you can use all Java features, libraries and tools.
Where can I get Vaadin?
How to get started with Vaadin?
What browsers are supported?
Mozilla Firefox 3+, Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, Safari 3+, Opera 10 and Google Chrome
Does Vaadin run on portals or the Google App Engine?
Yes and yes, in addition to running Vaadin applications as stand-alone applications they can be run as standard Java portlets or they can be deployed into the Google App Engine.
What license is Vaadin available under?
Vaadin is free and Open Source under the Apache 2.0 license. Read more about licensing
here.
Where can I get help with my technical question?
You can post technical questions to
the forum. There are lots of tutorials, articles and other documentation available in the
developer wiki. And don't forget to try our site-wide custom search. If you happen to find the answer to your forum question before we do, you can reply to yourself!
If it is a Java tool, library or technology, the answer is most likely yes. Vaadin is a single Jar-file implementation following Java EE standards and it uses typical desktop UI programming patterns. This should make it compatible with most other Java technologies, libraries and tools. You can get a glimpse of what has been done with it
here.
Can Vaadin be used together with Spring?
Who is developing Vaadin?
Vaadin is mainly developed and maintained by IT Mill. As in most open source projects, however, hobbyists and professional enthusiasts play a big role in its development.
Who uses Vaadin?
As we don't track our users extensively, we don't know exactly. Developers at IT Mill use Vaadin, but it's also used by a large but unknown number of individuals, businesses and organizations around the world.
If you wish to promote that you're using Vaadin, please feel free to post something about it on our
forums.
How is Vaadin development financed?
How mature is the framework and what is the history of Vaadin?
Vaadin was previously known as IT Mill Toolkit, which in turn has its roots in Millstone web UI library. The development of Millstone was started already in 2000 and the framework has evolved a lot in the recent years.
IT Mill Toolkit was open-sourced in 2007, and since then we have been moving more and more into that direction. Renaming the library as Vaadin in 2009 was one more step in this process.
Do you give speeches in conferences?
Yes, we give speeches in many conferences. If you would like us to speak in your conference, please don't hesitate to
contact us.
How well does Vaadin scale and how good is the overall performance?
Vaadin is used in many heavy-load production environments with great success. Also we have done a lot of work to keep the penalty of the server round-trips as small as possible.
How are the layouts created?
We have several different options for creating the layout of the application. Most developers prefer the programmatic style of creating layouts in a similar fashion to Swing programming. If you like to use HTML it's possible by using a
CustomLayout or if you want to position the elements using CSS, you might want to use
CssLayout.
In addition the Vaadin plugin for Eclipse includes an experimental WYSIWYG editor. It should help you get started with building your applications UI very quickly. It generates Java code for you that you can use as a starting point for implementing event listeners and data binding.
How can I change the look and feel of the application?
Every Vaadin application has a theme assigned to it. You can easily define your own themes by adding your own CSS definitions and images if needed. The CSS class names are well documented and the Eclipse plugin even creates the needed files for you.