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Ian Darwin: Java Web Frameworks Catalog

I have prepared a list of Java-based MVC frameworks; click on details for any framework that piques your interest.

Please let me know about other frameworks that should be listed, or about broken links (many of the older small frameworks are gone from the web). If you find one that's not here, please use the contact form on the home page. To see which of these are currently most popular, you might refer to Rebel Labs' Popular Web Frameworks

Who's Using Web Java?

There is also a list of major/high-volume web sites based on Java to answer the question "who uses Enterprise sites based on Java Web Tier?".

The Implementations

Note: This is very dated material.

I have also built a number of implementations of a simple web form using some of these frameworks. The goal of these implementations is to capture the results of a typical "signup" web form, validate it, and store the results in a database.

The implementations are the following. The source for these is on my GitHub account, in the jwf-impls repo.

  • Worst-case servlet: no structure at all.
  • Worst-case JSP: no structure at all.
  • "Better" JSP using JavaBean and DataAccessor Object
  • "Good" Servlet/JavaBean/DAO/JSP "Servlet Dispatcher" MVC
  • "Better": Java Server Faces (JSF) and JPA
  • "Better": Spring, with both JSP and JSF
  • Various others!

Why?

I wanted to learn how these various frameworks compared. :-) And, the Frameworks catalog was prepared in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Master of Science Degree at Staffordshire University. Here is the original academic report from 2004