Comparison of YUI and Ext JS

Question

I used Ext JS as my toolkit with rich widgets, but I am thinking about switching to YUI , partly due to a less restrictive license.

The component-oriented model used in YUI seems very similar to the one I liked so much in Ext JS, but I'm interested in how deep these similarities are. Therefore, I am interested in feedback from people who used both Ext JS and YUI. What is and what is different? What am I losing by switching to YUI, and what will I get?

Answer 1

I think that both libraries actually address different needs.

YUI is designed to meet the needs of Yahoo inc. This is great for creating public applications where things like graceful degradation, clean layout, and accessibility are important.

ExtJS is a very good and well-designed complete RIA infrastructure that is very strongly focused on creating a line of business applications. Features such as a truly powerful mesh component, robust layout and a good professional look.

I used both quite significantly, albeit before YUI 2.7.0, and created several complete RIAs using frameworks.

Transferring an existing application from one to another will be completely different, because although they have a common ancestor (ExtJS was once YUIext), the framework is now completely different.

Answer 2

One significant difference is that YUI is licensed exclusively under the BSD license, while ExtJS is distributed under the very viral interpretation of the GPL. For example, when interpreting the Sencha GPL, if you write the SOAP or REST interface specifically to talk to the ExtJS external interface, then your server code must be GPL, and you must provide access to the source, since you "distributed" it by providing access through The Internet. Sencha provides a commercial license for its code, but if you carefully read their documents, you will see that they do not allow you to convert the code that you wrote in the Sencha GPL to another license when switching to the commercial version. (Http://www.sencha.com/legal/license-overview)

In short, if your code needs to integrate with proprietary business logic or commercially licensed systems, you should start with Sencha's commercial development from the start.

Answer 3

For me, the difference is that YUI is very light and flexible, while ExtJS is heavier, with more area and more rigid in how you use it. YUI is great if you know what you are doing in Javascript and want to expand your strength; ExtJS is good if you need a user interface abstraction layer that you don’t have to bother with ... but if you want it to do what it did not plan to do, this can be a real challenge.

Answer 4

When creating a recent application, I had exactly the same decision to make YUI or Ext JS.

I ended up with YUI for several reasons: YUI 3 is extremely lightweight and fast for simple tasks, and lazy loading makes things even faster.

For this application, graceful degradation is important.

Using YUI 2 widgets in YUI 3 is quite simple and with an interval of 3.1 times less, which will become even easier.

The YUI documentation is incredible, and the irc chats and forums are very useful and there are actually people from the YUI development team.

Answer 5

At the time when all applications are transferred to the website , a clear line drawn by Gareth between a public person and a business application does not make sense either.

I prefer other answers like Robusto and compare both structures for technical / financial reasons.

Advantages of YUI:

• Free
• Lightweight (HTML + Javascript)
• More efficient
• Easier to learn and understand
• Best Documentation and Examples
• Large community

Benefits

Ext:

• Richer Features and Features
• Some (undocumented) server drivers on the server side (e.g. .NET) (although using such libraries on the server seems like a bad design)

Conclusion: If your website does not require additional ext features, go to YUI.

Answer 6

I have not used ExtJS yet, still at the training stage, but for what I could do with it, I’m sure that even a little more than a year ago, when I did a lot from YUI dev, it would be much more complicated , and the result would not be so smooth.

Not to say too much that you shouldn't do this, but my advice was to do some serious research and good prototyping of some of the existing features that you should see if YUI meets your needs. Don't just base yourself on examples and feelings of “Yes, it seems like it will work.”

Answer 7

GPLv3 states that as long as your users are part of the same legal entity, you do not need to share the source code. The wording technically indicates this, as if they were not part of the same legal entity, then you need to provide a source. But this does not mean that Sencha will not change the license later. This also does not mean that they are either.