What Web Application Framework for Delphi is recommended?

Question

There has been some activity in the Web Application Framework area for Delphi (Win32). There are many new projects around, and I would love to see a overview description of their features (code and documentation quality, unit test coverage, ease of installation, minimum Delphi version, security, session management, database access, URL mapping, templating systems, MVC, Ajax, configuration ...).

Frameworks (alphabetically)

• Delphi on Rails
• ExtPascal
• Raudus
• RealThinClient
• uniGUI
• WebHub

Answer 1

Have you allready eard about Delphi on rails ?

Delphi On Rails is an application/web server based on MVC and REST.

Answer 2

Some time ago I used RTC, which was stable and very fast, the RTC Server-side code can be compiled to a Stand-alone Server and ISAPI Extension

I never used g-framework but looks promising

Answer 3

In a past job, I used webhub (http://www.href.com) with pretty satisfying results.

(large auction app used inside a car dealership organization)

For fairly large jobs where you want to keep some control, I would certainly recommend it.

Answer 4

See ExtPascal, at http://code.google.com/p/extpascal

ExtPascal is an Object Pascal (Delphi, FreePascal/Lazarus) wrapper/binding for Ext JS, a complete GUI Ajax framework, made in JavaScript, for Rich Internet Application (RIA) development.

ExtPascal lets you use Ext JS from Object Pascal commands issued by the server. It brings the structure and strict syntax of the Object Pascal for programming the web browser. ExtPascal will wrap Draw2d into future releases.

Features

• Supports Ext JS 3.2.1.
• High performance with native code for Server side programming, no PHP required.
• Uses FastCGI or CGI for Web Server communication.
• Compatible with any Web Server supporting CGI or FastCGI protocols.
• Statefull, keep-alive and multithread server applications.
• Parses Ext JS HTML documentation to Object Pascal units.
• Self-translates Object Pascal code to JavaScript code during execution.
• Coding in full Object Pascal, minimal use of (X)HTML, CSS and JavaScript, but you must know very well the Ext JS framework.
• AJAX programming using Object Pascal.
• Full wrapper to all Ext JS classes, singletons and widgets.
• Transparent support for all main web browsers: IE 6+, Firefox 1.5+, Safari 3+, Opera 9+ and Chrome 2+ on any client side platform (PCs, SmartPhones, iPhone, PDAs, etc)!
• Server side multi-platform support through FreePascal 2.4.0 compiler. Tested on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (Intel and PowerPC).
• Thread Garbage Collector for all Ext JS classes and widgets.
• Slim Services and EventLog support for Windows.
• Daemon support for Posix platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, etc).
• Produces small executables and consumes very low memory.
• Direct debugging using Delphi, Lazarus or MSEide debuggers.
• ExtP Toolkit by Phil Hess. Convert your desktop and client/server applications, made in Delphi/Lazarus, to Web 2.
• Embedded Web Server option on Windows or Posix platforms, no Apache or IIS is required.
• Optional Delphi/Lazarus style event handler.
• Compatible with Delphi(7..2010) and FreePascal(2.4.0).
• Integrated CodePress widget with Object Pascal syntax highlighting.
• Pascal enumerations support for Ext JS framework.
• Code completion enabled for all Ext JS elements.-

Answer 5

uniGUI (unified Graphical User Interface) is a framework for developing AJAX Web Applications in classical WYSIWYG Delphi RAD way. Its unique set of Components breaks the barrier between desktop and Web application.

it's still under beta, but seems actively updated.

Answer 6

You can also evaluate Raudus (http://www.raudus.com/) based on ExtJS framework (same that ExtPascal, commented up).
It's in development and the future license it's not clear. See it and evaluate.

Regards.