DevExpress versus Telerik: Specific Feature Differences for WinForms Development

Question

I'm interested in coming up with a list of specific feature differences between these two products. I'm specifically looking at DevExpress's DXperience Enterprise subscription and the Telerik Premium Collection for .NET, which seem to be closely competing offerings. If someone can point me at such a comparison list, that would be great, but so far what I've found in other posts has seemed mostly high level, technically speaking. I'd like to have something more concrete, statements like "Product A allows you to do X, which Product B does not (or at least not within a similar amount of effort)." Many differences are probably fairly minor, but regardless, as long as it's a technical difference, I'd be happy to see any and all tidbits included.

I'm just starting to evaluate these products myself, and I'm guessing many others have done this head to head comparison before me. I think the community could benefit from whatever solid information we could assemble. Thanks much for any contributions.

Note: This question here is targeting features specifically related to WinForms development. I'm posting this topic separately with regards to ASP.NET, WinForms, and report generation.

Answer 1

I have done a head-to-head, but it was mostly focused around Grid performance (see what-are-your-experiences-with-netadvantage-or-dxperience).

That being said, I've used many of the DevExpress controls in WinForms development, and find them to be well designed and feature rich. As I mention in the linked question, their support is exceptional.

Answer 2

I know that DevExpress has a long history developing solutions for Borland Delphi before they moved towards .NET development. They made several very useful Delphi components. A previous employer of mine bought a license for those Delphi components including sourcecode and thus I had a chance to examine their coding style. It's not the best I've seen but it's well-organized. They have good knowledge about grids.

And Telerik? They never developed something for Delphi, just .NET, so I know nothing about their quality.

My current employer doesn't use these components, not for the Delphi development nor for the .NET development. That's because third-party components always tend to contain more overhead than you'd need. Instead of comparing two sets of components, you should first determine exactly what you need. Then go check which one offers the most of your needs. Don't look at what others are choosing because every sane developer will choose the product that offers exactly what they need. And the needs of others don't have to be the same as your own needs.

(I'd suggest DevExpress, though, out of familiarity.)

Answer 3

I did some similar searching, for the same platform that you're developing on, and I wasn't able to find anyone with enough experience with BOTH, but I've heard more good from users of DevExpress tools than I have from users telerik tools.

In the end, I was forced to use DevExpress tools at my shop. It's been about a year, and I must say that I'm extremely pleased with their winforms stuff. Frequent updates (every couple of months, one just yesterday in fact), fast response to problems via their ticket system.

I'm not sure about telerik, but DevExpress is a bit expensive (if you're going to go for unversal or enterprise, which if you're not paying for it: I suggest it). I wouldn't get their stuff if the boss wasn't footing the bill.