Devexpress or Telerik Controls comparison

Question

I am looking into purchasing either dev express or telerik to aid in the development of our applications.

We are mainly an asp.net outfit but we are starting to make more and more use of silverlight and mvc.

I would like to know what people have thought about:

• Feature set
• Ease of use
• Documentation
• Pricing and Licensing

Solution 1

First the disclaimer - I work for DevExpress. And I'll try to give you my fair answer because the choice and decision is up to you.

Generally, both Suites will seem similar in terms of products and features. However there are some key differences which can be advantageous for you. Before you make a decision, I recommend:

1) Decide which functionality is needed

2) Which controls you are going to use or need

3) Ask support whether the features you need are supported. I know that there can be a situation, when everything works OK, but there is just a small thing which must be implemented ... and you can't.

Please spend a little time to research before making a decision. If you choose our controls, our support team will be glad to assist you.

One of the key benefits of using our tools: - easy to get started - lots of resources to learn - intuitive API, setting up complex scenarios is easier - great community - excellent support team

Hmm, I was going to write a long answer about ASP.NET DevExpress controls ... Being the author of some of them, I like them :). Really. They are really good. Hope, you will make a decision which will bring you the benefit.

Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions and we'll be glad to help you.

Solution 2

Just to set the tone here: I work for Telerik and am involved with their ASP.NET (AJAX and MVC) as well as XAML products so keep that in mind :)

Since both companies suites tend to be fairly similar I highly recommend trying both of them out. Generally when I try out a 3rd party vendor I try to do the following:

• Check out the features of the controls
• Use their Documentation and Examples
• Check out the community (forums)
• Try out support (submit a ticket just to see the kind of response I get)

Usually after this I have a pretty good idea whether or not I like the product or not!

As for Telerik-specific items I'll keep to the categories you mentioned to make it easier :)

Feature set

Since you mentioned that you're interested in ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight I say look over our demo pages and see what we offer. Every demo has the source code listed on the page (for ASP.NET products it's below the actual demo, for Silverlight there's a "Code" button in the upper right-hand corner of the demo). This will give you an idea of the features, as well as the code that goes into the controls.

• ASP.NET AJAX
• ASP.NET MVC
• Silverlight

Ease of use

Whenever I get feedback from any of our customers they almost always mention how quick and easy it is to get started with our controls. However, what one person thinks is easy an intuitive might not be the case for another, so I say try out the components and see what you think! :D

Documentation

Our documentation is full of examples and more detailed information about the controls. Again, I definitely recommend using the documentation for the products to see what you think:

• ASP.NET AJAX
• ASP.NET MVC
• Silverlight

Pricing and Licensing

Our license is on a per-developer basis, with no royalty fees or anything like that for distribution. We try to make your life as easy as possible, and if you're working on a team where multiple people come in and out of the team we have the ability for you to transfer a license to a new individual coming in on the team.

Since you are looking at three products I highly recommend looking into the Premium Collection or even Ultimate Collection (for a full list of what's included, see this page) since you get quite a deal on these packages.

Also, our trials are fully functional and do not expire (only a trial message pops up once in a while) so feel free to use and abuse the components to your hearts content!

So that's it for my wall of text, good luck with the evaluation!

Solution 3

This is a great discussion. I used the DevExpress ASP.NET suite for over two years on one project and I'm now using Telerik ASP.NET AJAX on a new project.

To be perfectly honest - they basically do the same thing. The difference is in the support and samples. In this - I think DevExpress does a better job.

my $.02...

Edit

I haven't used either DevExpress or Telerik controls in quite some time. So to be fair to both DevExpress and Telerik, my original answer is moot at this point.

Solution 4

Telerik ASP.NET controls have significant advantage over DevExpress -- automated web tests, rich API for testing Web Pages containing telerik controls.

Telerik also has less strict license terms:

• Telerik software is licensed on a per-seat basis
• DevExpress software is licensed on per developer bases (personal) without permission to hand over license to other developers.

But in my company we use DevExpress. It was not me who chose these components. In fact I am pretty happy working with DevExpress.

Solution 5

I use Telerik ASP.NET, not by my choice but by my managers.

Feature set: great, you have tools for pretty much anything you need.

Ease of use: it is OK, not excellent (nothing is). Had some problems with styling some controls (telerik here is not making our lifes easier). Also some controls don't work well together (RadComboBox inside RadMenu sometimes can give a headache for example).

Documentation: Alot of articles. In fact Telerik is braging about how great is their documentation. I have found that alot of it is outdated or incorrect. Especially in terms of client-side API: find something in their documentation what actually works, nearly impossible (example: they suggest to use function .listDOMElement while in fact it is .get_listDOMElement). Who is writing that, I don't know...

Licensing: can't say much as my manager cares about that...

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Comments

[Matt Seymour]

Could not have asked for a better source if i contacted devexpress myself. Thanks for your comment.

[Mehul]

Daniel, if you ever get a chance to re-evaluate your existing suite and need help for DevExpress products, then please email [email protected] and we'll setup a gotomeeting or something to show you DevExpress web products. Thanks.

[Admin]

This answer seems sub-par to the Telerik-sponsored answer, and as stated by another comment "it was just a great [big] disclaimer".

[Steve Coleman]

I agree, I have used both. DevExpresses support is better. Answers are clearer. I also find that DevExpresses controls are lighter and more optimized. DevExpress designs behind the controls are more thought out. 1 example. Telerik uses javascript to hide columns in it's grid and uses the same collection for scrolling[it's just hiding and showing to emulate scrolling] and hiding columns. Since it's the same collection, you cannot hide columns then scroll. I posted the issue to their support and was told. It's fine and should work that way.

[Steve Coleman]

another, Telerik does not allow conditional binding. So if you have large amounts of columns, you cannot select to display a few. you have to pull and render them all. Then hide with JS. Very heavy. Another point, before I bought Telerik. They told me I could do conditional binding and render a grid completely from server side. Then after purchase, support told me it's not supported and i have to use the markup. Very bait and switch.

[Steve Coleman]

If you use Telerik support they love the 24 hour window. Most answers come in at 24 hours and if you update your question along that window, it resets the timer. I also have message chains that go on and on. for weeks trying to solve issues, due to bad answers.

[jwize]

You can't even edit or delete your forum posts at Progress/Telerik after 17 years of people asking, "nuff said!" Telerik is better at marketing!

[s3c]

@DevExpressTeam Is anything changed after 9 years? It would be best to update your answer with a date (year) "tag".

[s3c]

Is anything changed after 9 years? It would be best to update your answer with a date (year) "tag".

[iCodeSometime]

Why is this the accepted answer? There is no useful information here.