JavaServer Faces (JSF) vs Struts

My JSF article series and Meet the Experts appearance on IBM developerWorks received a lot of feedback. I would have to say, the most common question or feedback came along the lines of comparing Struts to JSF.

Reader Feedback: Page 1 of 1

#8	Jan Naude commented on 16 Jan 2008 Relating to Doug Smith's question: Doug, I think you misunderstand MVC. The components are: Model (data retrieved/manipulated by business rules) View (responsible for rendering/displaying relevant information to user) Controller - business logic that operates on/manipulates model to produce data to be displayed by view. The idea with MVC is not to mix business logic (i.e. Servlets/Struts actions) and presentation logic (jsp/html) in the same artifacts (components), because then you end up not being able to replace/change one without having to replace/change the other. JSF focuses more on easily developing the View part, while Struts concentrates more on Model and Controller and their integration.
#7	Jose Arco commented on 14 Nov 2007 Hi, Really interesting article. I have a related question. We have a web acces application based completly on Struts. Now we want to add a new funcionality based on JSF, the question is if we could have integration problems between both tools. Thanks in advanced
#6	bill commented on 26 Oct 2007 it would be nice to redo this comparison TODAY in 2007 and see what comes out. Struts2 has really added a ton to their side and JSF components have matured. I would like to see a modern comparison- as there does not seem to be one.
#5	wildcat commented on 5 Apr 2005 Hi, Yes JSF is the way to go. The thing which I like the most about JSF is the finer control given by the component based architechture which is the key for RAD tools..like .NET. Java is up there facing a string competition form .NET but hey JAVA will WIN.
#4	Doug Smith commented on 19 Oct 2004 Friends, this is going to sound like a really dumb question, but I am asking in all sincerity. While I understand the arguments to separate view (screen) from model (database & rules) & control (keyboard), I'm not sure I understand why I need Struts or JSF to do this. I can put code a View as a JSP, interact with the Model using Javabeans, and exercise Control using HTML or JSP directives. What exactly are the benefits using either Struts or JSF? The cost is obvious - another set of things to learn and configure. (Asked by a solo practitioner who doesn't work with graphic designers).
#3	David Thirakul commented on 18 Oct 2004 Very interesting article, thank you. We are currently working extensively with Struts for the presentation layer and are watching the progress of JSF with much interest because it seems to be the way to go in the long term. There is no doubt that JSF will take over as McClanahan stated himself when he was talking about migrating to JSF. (see http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=29068). There's no new development on Struts as opposed to JSF which by the way is the answer to MS webforms. So to answer Tom's comment, yes there is overlaping and if you start a new project from scratch and want to compare struts and jsf, roland's article is very insightful. What I would like to point out also is that JSF seem to lack the ease of use and functionnality of webforms, that's why all the new development goes into JSF, there's a lot of catching up to do...
#2	Roland Barcia commented on 1 Oct 2004 Thanks for the feedback. Craig has a vested interest in both frameworks. There are features in Struts that compliment JSF like Tiles and the Validation framework. But just because they have some areas where they can work together does not mean I cannot compare them both. In this article, I focus on the Core of the frameworks and how they differ. I see very little benefit with the current Struts implementation to mix the Struts controller with the JSF components.
#1	Tom Roche commented on 30 Sep 2004 To speak of "JSF vs Struts" displays a lack of understanding of the different specializations of the two frameworks. JSF specializes in view, Struts in model and control. The two can be used together via the Struts-Faces Integration Library. As Craig McClanahan's inaugural blog post http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/craigmcc/20040927#struts_or_jsf_struts_and points out: > For new development, here's the best strategy for determining what > to do: > * Evaluate the two technologies individually, to see if they satisfy > your requirements. > * If one or the other technology is sufficient, go ahead and use it > (it's easier to learn and use one technology rather than two where > possible); keeping in mind, however, the caveats about Struts HTML > tags mentioned above. > * If your requirements include unique features supported only by > Struts (such as Tiles or client side validation support), feel > free to use the two frameworks together. > The Future > It should be clear by now that there is overlap between Struts and > JSF, particularly in the view tier. Over time, JSF will continue to > evolve in the view tier area, and I'm going to be encouraging the > Struts community to focus on value adds in the controller and model > tiers.