.NET Usercontrols telerik devexpress infragistics ComponentOne: who's best?

Question

I am considering the purchase of some .NET user controls with interest in both WinForms and asp.net. I have trialed in the past devexpress when I needed a hierarchical data grid for a personal project which I was impressed with. Rather than just jump for them I am interested in peoples experience of different products such as:

Telerik
Dev Express
Infragistics
ComponentOne
Any Others?

I would like peoples opinions on:
- Features Set and Number of Controls
- Installation and Upgrade
- Ease of use
- Documentation
- Price
- License
- Development (Updates to controls their side)

Also if anyone has any links to review (hopefully side by side) please post them

Answer 1

I can only speak as a consumer of Infragistics (WinForms) - don't really know how much it cost, etc. The company I worked for last was able to use their UltraWinDataGrid to do phenomenal data representation. The kind of things that were capable made my mouth drop, and added quite a bit of polish. Documentation was OK, as I remember it. I've seen some people mention problems w/ the Web controls so that may be a caveat empor.

Answer 2

• Infragistics: Can be quite daunting when you first get started with them -- they have more options than anything I've ever seen. The learning curve is harsh, but once you get used to it, they can be some of the most useful components in your toolbox. Just make sure to try using simpler things first, or your maintenance successors will wise up and have your head on a pike.

• ComponentOne: Has one of the best charting control suites (both WinForms and WebForms) I'm familiar with, but the rest of their suite has never really be useful to me -- there always seems to something better or easier to use in my toolbox.

• Telerik: For AJAXy things, I've used their RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX on several projects now, and they really are worth the price. I can't say much about their WinForms or non-AJAX WebForms stuff, though.

• Divelements: For plain-old WinForms/WPF development, you can't actually go wrong with anything Tim's written.

• ComponentFactory: Again, for WinForms development, you can't go wrong here. I can't count the number of times I've saved my job by using the free Krypton Toolkit from the get go. Management may not get that what they've tasked just me with will require 10 man years to do, but they always assign more people once they see my amazingly pretty prototype.

Answer 3

I used telerik, devexpress, infragistics and componentone for both winforms and webforms. Hands down, devexpress wins. Please, just give them all a try and see for yourself.

Installation and upgrade is very nice. It's great that you won't have issues with multiple versions for working multiple projects either. (such as 7.3 and 8.2 for example). The project converter has never created a problem for me.

Documentation is above average on winforms and somewhat cumbersome for webforms.

Easy to use

I think the prices are reasonable. It really resonates with me when they have such good support (every support suggestion has been right on) and to know they developed Refactor.

They have quarterly updates with neat feature enhancements that my team and I usually find useful and interceding minor updates with primarily fixes.

Answer 4

I use Telerk's RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, worth every penny !

Check out online Demo's and see what functionality comes out of the box.

If you want both WinForms and ASP.NET controls, $1,299 will get you both.

Answer 5

In my experience:

• Web development: Telerik wins, they started as a web company and their Asp.NET products where the best you can find from the start, so this long history showns
• Windows development: I've used both ComponentOne and Infragistics and I found C1 tools a little easier to work with and more performing. Printing features are top notch and the other components are very good too
• Windows and Web: Also if Infragistics is not on top neither for Windows or Web development it has a very good programming model that work more or less the same on windows and asp.net, so if you're thinking to use a single component vendor and are developing both for Asp.Net and Windows Infragistics is the best choice, I do not like the Telerik windows component and the C1 web components.

If you're planning to do complex web UI and have a lot of windows form development experience I would suggest also checking this company: http://www.visualwebgui.com/

Answer 6

I have used Telerik, Infragistics and ComponentOne. My experience with Infragistics was absolutely terrible, I can never recommend their work for any project. Telerik and ComponentOne are nice, but both suffer from the same problem - they will accomplish 95% of what you need, but customizing them to get that last 5% will take so much effort you won't save much in the long-term over writing components yourself.

So be sure to analyze your requirements very, very carefully and look for discrepancies between that and the products' capabilities and degree of customization possible.

Answer 7

You may consider checking out this question: What is the best commercial 3rd party control library out right now?

FWIW, I really do like Infragistics. However, as other have mentioned, that learning curve is steep. OTOH, once you're highly proficient in it, you can do just about anything -- and most of it on either the web or Windows.

It can emit huge code for the web if you're not careful -- most of the publicly-accessible web apps I've built using it perform quite well, without the emitted code being a huge issue. But there was one internal web app ... Brutal. On the other hand, the client in question wanted to replicate "Excel on the Web" with that app, complete with dozens of columns and hundreds of rows, some of the cells editable, validation rules, custom formatting, the whole nine. In a sense, they got what they deserved with 1- and 2-meg viewstates. :)

Answer 8

I've recently used Infragistics and Telerik; my preference in Telerik. For me Telerik's controls have been more intuitive than Infragistics. However, I found Infragistics documentation to be a bit better. In the end it's personal preference unless there's a very specific feature you're needing.

Answer 9

I've been using Developer Express for well over a year now, and I am extremely happy with the product. Getting CodeRush and Refractor Pro! along with the subscription.. makes things even better. Their Reporting suite is top-notch, easy to use, and as another person answering mentioned.. they keep updating their product, and upgrades are very easy on you. I've never had a problem.

I would highly recommend you go with them. Their support is solid as well.

Answer 10

I have just started evaluating components for an ASP.NET 2.0 application. Between Telerik and Component I would say Telerik did stand out for the web stuff. The support is good, documentation decent and the trial installs and works well with just a few customisations.

Component One on the other had was not as straight forward on trial. It installed fine but then I has a authentication problems and also some controls did not render properly. Some of the sames were not AJAX enabled out of the box.

Next stop for me will be DevExpress.

Answer 11

I have done a comparison in February 2007 of

• Infragistics
• devexpress
• janus-controls

Devexpress was clearly the winner! Take a look for details...

Answer 12

I have to say it really depends, in some respects at least, on your specific requirements and technical level as to which vendor you might choose at any given time. The real differentiator, over and above the features of the various controls and documentation, is the level of support you can get if you get into trouble.

Therefore, the clear winner by a mile has to be Telerik. Their ASP.NET AJAX controls are excellent, with new features and controls being added quarterly, decent docs and a wealth of demo's and sample code. In addition they have an excellent forum, plus blogs, and Telerik TV that showcases some outstanding projects with interviews and explanations of how it was all done.

I've been a software developer for over 20 years (eeek!) and have rarely, if indeed ever, found such consistantly high levels of support from a software vendor. On the occassions where I've found myself truely baffled about how to achieve the results I need, the Telerik support staff haven't just steered me in the general direction I need to be going in, they've taken the time to create sample code to help me understand where I've been going wrong.

I wouldn't dream of using anyone but Telerik, and I heartily recommend them to every developer using .NET.

Awesome, simply awesome!

Answer 13

I have to say almost the same than Mark before.

Simply look at the vendor forums - and see the difference. With telerik almost everything is solved (often with sample apps - or code snippets). I'm a telerik customer for more than 5 years - and I'm happy.

I started with Web Controls - later also use WinForm Controls. But I was not impressed by their initial release of WPF / Silverlight controls.

In the beginning of this year I gave those controls a try again. And now I have to say - telerik did a great job :)

The real great thing is that WPF and Silverlight controls share the same codebase. Just a notice (was very helpfull for me) - RoutedEvents are also available with the SL controls!

And this code sharing means "migration" is almost no work. Here an example about it: http://manni-at.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!82CF2A6C0D0C6F3C!179.entry

So a conclusion: I never had better support. All my problems have been solved (even things where I just was to lazy to investigate). The prize is more than fair. Last not least - you feel the "telerik thinking" in every kind of control suite. --This means: once you got familliar with one suite - you will also understand the other.

Answer 14

Here's my take on the matter: for web stuff, Telerik rules - I've used their MVC controls, and getting them to work over AJAX is easy. It's really as good as it gets. As for WinForms, I've used the DevExpress offering and while the assemblies are huge and API unintuitive, in terms of looks it's really hard to beat.

Answer 15

I know the common perception has been ComponentOne for WinForms/WPF/Silverlight and Telerik for ASP.NET, but C1 just launched a new A2 Framework that is built on jQuery and really kicks ass. The A2 Framework is basically jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX in every control. Each control also has the SAME object model in the client-side (JavaScript) as it does in server-side (C#/VB) so it is a really great tool for moving your apps to AJAX with ease. Some other nice new features are their compatibility with Microsoft naming conventions. It makes setting properties and handling events a lot easier than the other tools out there. I would HIGHLY recommend trying it or at least looking at it online. Here is the ComponentOne ASP.NET AJAX Control Explorer

Answer 16

I have worked mainly with telerik and Devexpress and heres my take

ASP.NET <- Telerik wins hands down the sheer choice and practicality of the controls as well as the neatness of implementation makes Telerik a winner

Winforms <- Devexpress has a very practical styling approach and is my favorite for developing winforms, the controls is easy to follow and the options makes sense quickly for anyone starting out

Reporting <- Even though Telerik has picked up the pace , I still haven't used a reporting suite more powerful and easy to use than the one from Developers express.

Silverlight <- Telerik, Simple fast easy to implement like silverlight apps should be

Answer 17

I am using DevExpress ASP.NET suite and I absolutely love it... I was able to accomplish quite a lot in short span with their amazing controls... esp their Scheduler Suite is fantastic and highly customizable... Just what we wanted...