We are planning to replace our web app controls with 3rd party components, and shortlisted Coolite, Telerik and DevExpress.
All these components look impressive and comprehensive and thus I would like to hear some review here and propose one of these.
Thanks.
Hey,
All I can speak for is Telerik, and they have a great product. THeir support is good, they get back to you promptly, and do what they can to address the problem, and do what they can to get you in working order in case they can't get certain changes deployed in time.
They have a wide array of products, so they aren't just web or windows or WPF, but all. If you are looking for more specific contents, please post and I'll add some additional details.
Check out their controls at demos.telerik.com
Do you want decent MVC support which isn't just an afterthought or hack work-around? Scratch DevExpress and Coolite from your list and go with Telerik. If you're just using web forms and are already comfortable with DevExpress compononents from another suite (eg DXpereience) I'd go with DevExpress (not only great controls but REALLY good support). If you're not already very familiar with DevExpress style I'd actually recommend obout (http://www.obout.com/) above the other three choices. Their grid alone is worth its weight in gold.
My vote is for Telerik. The controls are great for Rapid Application Development. They have the widest selection across the widest platforms; ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, WPF, Winforms, Silverlight.
I wouldn't recommend any 3rd party controls for performance critical or enterprise apps UNLESS you need a majority of the features that each controls comes with - any many come with oodles and oodles of features. As others have stated some controls are really bloated (particularly ASP.NET) and perform badly against simpler, customised implementations.
If you do go with Telerik bear in mind that their documentation is really really bad, so spending a few extra pounds on a support package is well worth it. Their suppport team usually answer within a day. Send them a repro environment and they'll generally fix it for you too :-)
HTH,
Mark
My vote is coolite, I have been using them for about a month now and while they are still under constant development and even change the API every once in a while, they are worth it. Very simple to use and extend once you get the hang of it. And since they are just wrapping ExtJS for the .Net developer, you can rely on ExtJS for documentation of the harder parts, they have a pretty large community and are pretty stable.
I can't speak for Telerik or Coolite since I don't use them. However DevExpress is a great tool, if your going to use MVC then DevExpress will not be your choice today. Their support is top notch, I get a response the day I submit my question. Not only does the DevExpress Support team answer my question they will throw in a sample project to help me get going. The documentation is pretty good and they throw in some videos on their DX Channel. Their support responsiveness is what has kept me a customer for 7 years.