Comparing ASP.NET MVC and Grails for a new project.

Question

Greetings, everyone. I consider myself to be an intermediate developer, but, to be candid, probably closer to novice than expert. In any case, I have more experience with C# and the .NET platform, but my current job has me working almost exclusively with Java. This in itself is sort of a problem, but I'm dealing with it fine and I'm not really in a position to change my role at the moment.

On the side, I am starting to work on a highly interactive, database-driven web project. I'm doing it because I feel that it's a great idea and I know that the experience of doing something like this from scratch will help me immensely.

I initially wanted to go with ASP.NET MVC and I am still leaning that direction. I'm not even sure why, but I love the community behind it and, in my opinion, Visual Studio is the best IDE around. However, doing that would be counter-productive to my current job. That brought me to Grails. Even though I realize that Groovy is not Java, it seems to be similar enough (not to mention that it runs on the JVM) that the skills I learn should still help me at my current job. The more I looked into Grails, the more I loved it, especially after having to deal with what I consider to be an extremely complex J2EE environment at work.

But with the good I found the bad. I can't help but notice that there are a lot of developers who are irritated with the amount of bugs in Grails. Being that I am starting a new project and I am fairly inexperienced, do I even want to consider Grails? Is it a liability? And what's the consensus about its longevity? I would really hate to get too involved if there is a good chance of it fading into obscurity within the next few years. And even if the bugs and longevity issues aren't a huge deal, how would you compare the ease of development of Grails with that of ASP.NET MVC? I realize this last part is highly subjective. But for the sake of comparison, let's say that someone with virtually no technical background were in the same position. Would you recommend they take a look at ASP.NET MVC or Grails?

Thanks so much. If anything needs clarified or reworded, please let me know. I sincerely hope I'm not opening a can of worms...

Answer 1

This is something that's been pretty much asked before here...

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache%3ABpGj8RtSUIsJ%3Astackoverflow.com/questions/1283935/what-technology-asp-php-joomla-rails-grails-for-a-website-from-scratch+Which+technology+to+choose+%28ASP.net+or+Grails%29&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Good Luck though!

Answer 2

Hi,

I am the author of this question and I can give you some shares on my own experience.

As it is stated in the question, I had no real preferences and I was opened to any technology/platform that could fulfill my requirements. After many tries of different technologies (at leats few days with PHP, Rails, ASP and Grails) and some answers from StackOverflow, I ended up with the same dilemma as yours : Grails or ASP.NET MVC ?

And I chose Grails. Why? Because of GORM. Almost only because of GORM. This is fantastic to deal only with your domain classes and have your DB schema automatically generated/updated. Of course, it has its limits but this is so powerful for querying and maintening your DB. You do not write SQL anymore and it is very easy to learn.

Now here is my 2-cents comparison of the 2 technologies:

GRAILS STRENGTHS

1. GORM (see above)

2. Complete Web Stack Framework : you can generate a website in minutes and everything is already configured

3. A lot to learn : You have Spring MVC, Hibernate, Sitemesh, Java, JEE, Groovy...Once you have mastered Grails you can add an additional page into your resume

4. Java world. Whatever you need, if it already exist in Java, you can use it.

5. Groovy : I really like this programming language. It takes time to get familiar but once done, you will love it.

GRAILS WEAKNESSES

1. Memory usage. Grails/groovy is greedy for memory and it might cost more than ASP for Web Hosting

2. Grails bugs : there are some and when you start a new project on a new technology, you assume that most of the problems come from you...until you find out (after 1 or 2 days) that it is a Grails bug. So my advice is to proceed by steps : test as soon as possible and don't try to twist the framework. It is rough on the edge so go after what is generally recommended. However, after 2 months, I do not encounter big problems anymore.

3. Debugging : due to the multiple layers of frameworks, errors are generally hidden inside tons of exception lines. Also, the only decent IDE debugger is IntelliJ but this is not as easy to debug as .NET under VS

ASP.NET MVC STRENGTHS

1. The community : it's HUGE ! First it is supported by Microsoft and secondly 30% of the websites out there are built in ASP.NET. You can find any snippets of code, any widgets, any AJAX components, any CMS...Grails community is very active but can you rival against millions ?

2. Visual Studio : I definitely agree with you : there is no better IDE. IntelliJ is very good for Grails but having using both, I prefered VS

ASP.NET MVC WEAKNESSES

1. The youthness of ASP.NET : this is a young framework. Built on a stable technology but young enough (less than 2 years) to have also some bugs/some bad practices. Indeed, the next version of ASP.NET MVC is strongly awaited by the community.

2. Microsoft : even if ASP.NET MVC is open-source, you are totally dependent on their decisions (and prices).

The Bottom Line If you project has tight deadline and if it is crucial for you to succeed, then go for ASP (according to your background). Otherwise, give a try to Grails..don't worry, you will also succeed but it will take more time. I am also deeply convinced that Grails has just started its long journey and it has a great future (see google trends)

Update by Dmitriy: If your refer to Google Trends you have to compare the 2 of them Groovy Grails and ASP.NET MVC.

Good luck