XForms/Comparison of XForms Products

Motivation You want to compare XForms browser products and understand each systems strengths and weaknesses. Method We first identify key attributes of each product and justify why an attribute is relevant in a high-level comparison. We then present a table of the products with one column for each attribute. Key Attributes of XForms Product Product Name and Current Version License What type of license is being used? Common options are Commercial (with link), Apache 2.0, LGPL, GPL or other. The column should always provide a URL to the exact license. Cost Per 10 or 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 Users What is the typical estimated costs for this product for between 10 and 10,000 users. Assume 10 medium-complexity forms used per person per day. Client/Server/Both Does the product convert the XForms code into browser-specific structures (HTML/JavaScript) on the client or the server? Browsers Supported What browsers are supported? Common items are All, C, F, I, O, S for Chrome, FireFox, IE, Opera and Safari. XForms 1.1 Compatibility Tests The W3C does provide a test suite for compatibility with the 1.1 specification. These test are rerun on a periodic basis. Currently only a subset of products are being tested. The current test results are here Version of XForms Supported Options would be 1.0, 1.1 Key Limitations of Current Release Status of XForms Compatibility Test Did this product undergo a third party test of all of the features of XForms? If so, what percentage of the test pass. Provide a link to the test results. Comparison Table Client Side Applications Product (Version)LicenseCostImplementationArchitectureBrowsersTest ResultsStrengthWeaknessNotes EMC/Documentum Commercial See Documentum Google Web Toolkit Client All EMC Results Chiba (3.0.0b2) liberal BSD and Apache 2 free Client DOJO with DWR 96% Chiba Results Ubiquity Apache 2.0 free JavaScript All Test Results Not mature Firefox Plugin Open source Free Browser Plugin Client Firefox 3.5 and earlier only Very compliant with standard Firefox only, Limited Table Support, Limited Support, No Mac Version Innovative Product, Ideal for quick prototyping, Fast form loads for forms that do not have long selection lists Formfaces Commercial JScript and HTML - No plugin required Client Very slow load times for medium forms, No large user base No updates to product since 2007 XSLTForms LGPL Free XSLT Tranformation Client or Server All Transform works on either server or client, Bundled with eXist and MarkLogic Not yet mature See XRX Wikibook Picoforms Commercial See Picoforms IE Plugin Client Internet Explorer Only Ideal for internal forms for IE only sites Support not clear, Required Admin rights to install Limited Community Support Server-Side Applications (No XForms elements are sent to the client) Product (Version)LicenseCostImplementationArchitectureBrowsersTest ResultsStrengthWeaknessNotes XSLTForms LGPL Free XSLT Tranformation Client or Server All Bundled with eXist and MarkLogic Not yet mature Orbeon Forms Open source Free Server-side transforms Server All Very Mature, Many Extensions, Excellent Support, Active Community Many examples require Orbeon Pipeline Language BetterFORM BSD, Apache 2 Free Server-side transforms all written in Java Server All Test Results Very Mature, bundled with eXist, support for subforms, commercial support, active community, comes with graphical installer successor of Chiba Project IBM Lotus Forms Commercial See IBM Server-side transform Server All Full Implementation, Very Mature, IBM Supported Price. Proprietary markup. HelloWorld Naming Conventions