Which Technology Fits Better: Oracle ADF or Forms Builder?

Many people and companies who plan to build a new system and are evaluating Oracle’s technologies — or who have a system written in Forms 6i and now want to modernize its look, power and features and move it to the web — keep asking the same question: which technology is the better fit?

Below I list the advantages and disadvantages of each technology, and I invite readers to share their opinions too.

Oracle Forms 11g

Advantages:

1. An up-to-date technology
2. Runs on WebLogic Server, which supports clustering
3. Acceptable performance
4. Good facilities for rapid system development

Disadvantages:

1. Not a true three-tier web architecture
2. No adequate technical support available at the moment
3. Problems with Persian localization
4. Cannot be integrated with the Fusion Middleware layer
5. Various bugs, because the version is new

Oracle Forms 10g

Advantages:

1. Fast development, thanks to its similarity to Forms 6i
2. Affordable experts are available in Iran
3. Forms 6i applications can be converted to Forms 10g at a reasonable cost and in a short time
4. Localized for Iran
5. Standardized and supported in Iran by a number of companies

Disadvantages:

1. The technology is quite old, so it lacks advanced features and even an attractive presentation layer.
2. It is not based on a true web architecture (the MVC pattern); it only moves the Forms 6i presentation layer to the web (using an applet).
3. It is not particularly fast.
4. It uses Oracle Application Server 10g, a weak server with many bugs that slows down noticeably under high load.
5. It cannot be integrated with other applications.

Oracle ADF 11g

Advantages:

1. Based on J2EE, the best-known platform for developing web applications
2. Runs on WebLogic Server, which is very powerful; since both ADF and WebLogic support clustering, applications with more than 400 concurrent users can be implemented easily
3. Part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware layer, so it can work with all products of that layer, such as Oracle WebCenter, Oracle BI, Oracle BPMN, Oracle SOA Suite and OID
4. More than 100 ready-to-use components in the presentation layer
5. Very fast development of true web-based systems
6. Oracle itself uses this framework to build its own web applications
7. With 40–50 hours of training the framework can easily be learned and put to use
8. Technical support and localization in Iran have been completed successfully, and many companies are developing with this framework
9. It has the power of Java EE without being complicated
10. It puts a strong emphasis on reusability, so development speeds up over time

Disadvantages:

1. Not enough experienced professionals
2. High cost

I hope this comparison gives you the insight you need.

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