Best JavaScript Framework Alternatives to Open Source

Every organization has different tools to support internal processes. As companies scale, IT teams are faced with the growing complexity of user requirements, which often go beyond the capacity of consumer software.

IT executives everywhere are turning their attention to custom solutions to better accommodate their organizations’ needs. 

In this article, we’ll dive into the key areas for choosing a development framework for your enterprise applications. You’ll learn about the common challenges with open-source software and what makes Sencha Ext JS the  alternative solution.

What to consider when developing enterprise software 

Regardless of the usage areas, the foundation of every high-performing enterprise software boils down to the development framework. If you’re in charge of developing a new application, chances are you’re considering open-source frameworks like React or Angular. 

Now, open-source packages come with a whole different set of challenges:

Security risks: Enterprise applications process sensitive data, so you’d want control over the system accessibility and user permissions. If you rely on open-source projects developed by a broader community, there may be little control over the source contributions. 

Maintenance effort: Enterprise software has unique requirements. Unfortunately, many open-source frameworks are not enterprise-ready for your particular use due to the nature of third-party code. You’ll also need to compromise the standard support your IT team requires.

Ease-of-use for user adoption: Lack of UX expertise or bandwidth makes it difficult to deliver the optimum user experience unless your team has reusable UI components for every project.

Considering the factors mentioned above, you should , especially for mission-critical environments. 

An ideal development framework should also offer:

• Version control or IDE-like experience with a native debugger
• Robust and granular access control functionalities
• Option for being self-hosted 

Why choose a proprietary framework?

The easier you can build and deploy apps, the more efficiently you’ll be able to address constant feature requirements from your users. And that’s just one among several advantages of closed-source frameworks.

Enterprise-grade security 

Security is probably the main driver for closed-source adoption among enterprises. Having controlled and authorized access to the source code is critical for enterprise software.

Dedicated support and training resources

You don’t have to worry about spending hours searching through docs or community forums to find answers to your problems. Using a commercial framework, you’ll get professional support from the vendor. The available documentation and user guides also directly cater to your use cases.

High code quality

Open-source frameworks don’t necessarily have the same level of attention to quality as their commercial counterparts. Proprietary options give you complete customizability to design software for very specific needs so your team can save time on development while ensuring the usability of the code immediately upon installation.

On top of these benefits, you’ll be provided with a standard license agreement, which comes with indemnification and warranty. This means fewer headaches over open-source licensing terms and compliance issues.

Ext JS: A powerful JavaScript framework for custom software development

Ext JS is a JavaScript framework that offers a component library for building rich client, cross-platform web applications. It is especially suited to handle enterprise applications with large volumes of data.

With Ext JS, you’ll have access to over 140 prebuilt UI components, including form builder, calendar, tables, charts, and more. Plus you’ll have the ability to visualize and analyze data using Sencha Pivot Tables and D3 Adapter.

Various other tools will help you deliver software with ease:

• Sencha Test
• GXT
• Cmd
• IDE & Code Editor
• Plugins
• Architect
• Themer
• Stencils
• Inspector

Let’s dive into some of the main benefits of Sencha Ext JS for developing custom software.

Accelerate development speed and increase quality

You can take advantage of  to efficiently build pixel-perfect UIs in less time. The code that automatically generates is optimized for high performance, so you can avoid errors as compared to coding manually. 

Boost your productivity with , a powerful command-line tool offering extensive options, from code generation and minimization to dynamic loading of packages, as well as a generation of builds for progressive web applications.

You’ll enjoy the automation capabilities for Sencha Ext JS development tasks, including compiling theme files, slicing and dicing images, and running a development web server to run your code locally.

Beautiful UI for efficient prototyping

On top of the rich UI component library, Sencha also helps to elevate the look and feel of your application with . Ext JS 7 and above offers a new, modern-looking Material Theme for Classic Toolkit, a design system describing visual components and the layout of an application, possible interactions, and the unified expression of qualities like color, shape, and motion.

Another productivity-boosting feature of Ext JS is the integration of tools. Everything you need to build custom web applications is in one place.

Using open-source software often requires you to go through a wide selection of frameworks and libraries for every component, which can be a tedious process. But the interoperability of Sencha components and additional tools allows you to significantly speed up the software development process.

Robust data package

The framework contains a robust package capable of handling data-intensive applications with many features: 

Consists of a multitude of classes with high-functioning models to enable client-side data collectionAccess and consume data from any back-end source thanks to its protocol-agnostic connectors Facilitate several client-side operations and minimize round trips to the server with session-management capabilities.

Professional services and support

Most importantly, as Ext JS customers, you’ll get access to a dedicated  for professional services. There’s no need to browse through hundreds of forum posts to troubleshoot your issues every time.

 If you want to connect with fellow Ext JS developers, join our  or follow us on . 

Try Sencha Ext JS free for 30 days

Successful enterprises trust Ext JS to build extensive and complex systems such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), CMS (Content Management System), OMS (Order Management System), and more.

Written by Linh Pham. Originally posted on: //www.sencha.com/blog/best-javascript-framework-alternative-to-open-source