What is the Best UI Component Set for WPF?

Question

Looking for a general purpose WPF toolset. Currently looking at Telerik and Infragistics. Are there better options out there? Of those two, which is better?

Solution 1

I'm still of the opinion that you don't need to get a third-party control library early in a new WPF project in the same way we all feel when doing WinForms project. I'm not too sure of your background with WPF, you might have hit an impasse and need a specific control, but generally the things you can do with XAML, styles and control templates are amazing.

For those out there that typically buy a third-party library just because the out-of-the-box controls look too bland then persevere with XAML as you will get all the customisation you'll ever need and you will eventually learn how to create amazing UI's that you would never get if you just drag and drop readymade controls to the UI surface.

For the controls that have very specific behaviour, DataGrid, Calendar Controls and charting, I've found all I've needed on CodePlex.

As mentioned in earlier posts I also recommend the following for those who don't want to splash-out on third party control libraries.

• For Charting :- VisiFire (www.visifire.com and www.codeplex.com/visifire)
• For DataGrid and Calendar controls :- WPF Toolkit (www.codeplex.com/wpf)

Solution 2

Also have a look at DevExpress. Their components are pretty good

Solution 3

DevComponents has a nice set.

Solution 4

Actipro has a WPF ribbon and a set of components (no DataGrid though or Charting).

There are a couple of vendors that offer their WPF Grid for free (a limited version of their enterprise edition, see Xceed).

For charting purposes there is Visifire.

Solution 5

I have no experience with Telerik, but if there's anything worse than Infragistics I'd be surprised. Not sure exactly what components you're after - have you seen WPF Toolkit?

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Comments

[Metro Smurf]

I've not used Infragistics, but we are supposed to start using it at work. Why do you think Infagistics is the worse?

[Nicholas]

Love that Visifire! Makes it so easy to look good.

[Jeff]

Just curious, but how did you get burned? We too have the Infragistics Grid everywhere.

[aroon65]

Many reasons. Firstly, it does not really do things the WPF way. eg. properties that aren't bindable, Winforms naming conventions (eg. DataSource instead of DataContext). Secondly, god-awful styling and templating woes. Thirdly, bugs abound. And there's always the poor performance...

[Matthew Ruston]

Also, I find Infragistics' online documentation a nightmare to use.

[Kemal Erdogan]

If Infragistics winforms is a guide, their WPF components must also suck, big way. Really bad API, lots of bugs. Both because of code bloat resulting from bad design and also pure incompetence. You should see their source code of how they serialize control state to disk

[Sebastien GISSINGER]

Agree, I began XAML alone but doing almost everything from scratch is very time consuming. Their support helped even with WPF basic knowledge I was lacking. And they have an acceptable answer for everything I asked for.