DevExtreme vs jQWidgets: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will be discussing the key differences between DevExtreme and jQWidgets, focusing on their features, capabilities, and compatibility.

1. Data Binding: DevExtreme offers a comprehensive data binding mechanism that allows developers to seamlessly bind data from various sources, including RESTful API services, to their UI components. On the other hand, jQWidgets provides similar data binding capabilities but with a more limited range of data sources.

2. UI Component Library: DevExtreme provides a vast collection of highly customizable UI components like grids, charts, calendars, and more. These components are designed to offer a rich and intuitive user experience. In contrast, jQWidgets also offers a wide range of UI components, but the collection may be less extensive compared to DevExtreme.

3. Responsive Design: DevExtreme is built with responsive design in mind, ensuring that the UI components can adapt and smoothly adjust to different screen sizes and form factors. This allows applications developed with DevExtreme to provide a consistent user experience across devices. Although jQWidgets also supports responsive design to some extent, it may require additional effort and customization.

4. Mobile Support: DevExtreme comes with native mobile support, enabling developers to create cross-platform mobile applications using a single codebase. It provides essential mobile-specific features like touch gestures, adaptive layout, and native-like performance. jQWidgets, on the other hand, primarily focuses on web application development and may require additional frameworks or libraries for mobile support.

5. Documentation and Community Support: DevExtreme provides comprehensive documentation, including detailed API references, step-by-step tutorials, and sample projects. It also has an active and engaged community that offers support and shares knowledge. jQWidgets also provides documentation and a support forum, but the level of detail and community engagement may vary.

6. Pricing and Licensing: DevExtreme follows a commercial licensing model, which means developers need to purchase a license to use it in commercial projects. It offers different pricing options based on the number of developers and deployment requirements. jQWidgets also offers commercial licenses but also provides a limited Community Edition with fewer features that can be used for non-commercial projects.

In summary, DevExtreme and jQWidgets are both powerful UI component libraries, but DevExtreme offers a more extensive collection of components, native mobile support, and comprehensive documentation. jQWidgets, on the other hand, provides a more cost-effective solution with a limited range of components and may require additional effort for mobile support.