SAP UI5 framework is getting rapid popularity among SAP web application developers. Also, SAP has big plans on Fiori, the ready to use mobile web applications on SAP, built on SAP UI5 & SAP Gateway.
Moving from WebDynpro to UI5 development is a major shift in the development approach and skills. With this document, I wanted to highlight the key differences between these two commonly used UI frameworks from SAP.
| Features |
SAP UI5 |
Web Dynpro |
| Usage scenarios |
- Application to be used both on desktop and mobile devices
- Casual usage scenario, targeting non SAP users
- Simple screens
- Fit for building stateless apps, both SAP and non-SAP
|
- To build desktop based web applications
- Suitable for developing custom UI for complex SAP business Transactions
- Simple and complex screens
|
| Development Skills |
- HTML/HTML5
- Javascript/JQeury
- CSS
|
- Java – for WebDynpro Java
- ABAP–for WebDynpro ABAP
|
| Platforms & tools |
- SAP Java stack
- SAP ABAP stack
- SAP HANA XS
- Non SAP Web Application servers like TOMCAT
- Eclipse with UI5 plugins
|
- SAP Java stack – for WebDynpro Java
- SAP ABAP stack – for WebDynpro ABAP
- NetWeaver Developer Studio(NWDS) and NetWeaver Development
Infrastructure(NWDI)
|
| UI Features |
- Latest web UI features available
- Ability to customize and extend
|
- Limited UI features
- Limited extension and customization possible
|
| Browser rendering |
- Runs 100% on browser
- All UI events client side
|
- The applications runs on the server side
- Majority of UI events are server side, minimum client side events
|
| Application Performance |
- High performing due to client side events
- Browser rendering is faster as HTML content size is minimal
|
- Frequent performance issues due to multiple server round trips
- Amount of HTML content generated is high, impacting the browser rendering performance
|
| Mobile support |
- Fully supported with dedicated mobile libraries
for UI
|
|
| Models |
|
- Supports Java, ABAP, Web services models
|
| UI Design |
- UI design requires extensive coding in HTML and Javascript
(SAP is currently developing new UI5 development
environment with drag and drop features
|
- Wizard driven UI design with minimal coding
required
|
Great summary!!
Personally I think the ‘Ability to customise and extend’ is the biggest advantage of UI5, no longer do we have to be restricted to the standard web dynpro controls and behaviours.
Many thanks,
Jason
Hi Sujesh
Nice job.
Java Webdynpro used to support mobile, guess still does.
Could be handy to highlight the Browsers supported by Webdynpro as opposed to SAPUI5
Cheers
jsp
Hello John,
WDJ is not supported on mobile devices.
regards,
Sujesh
Ummm… I think John is correct:
https://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/42/c136cb0f241d66e10000000a1553f6/frameset.htm
It’s not “cutting-edge mobile”, but mobile nonetheless.
Well done with the comparisons though. I wonder if if would be worth splitting the Web Dynpro column into two (WDJ and WDA) , for extra clarity?
Regards
Glen
Hi Sujesh,
Nice overview of the key differences, thank you for sharing 🙂 .
Thanks for sharing, for myself coming from WDPj I am a fan of SAPUI5 and as commented above by Jason, the extensibility is one of the key features.
Martin
I like the blog. In fact one aspect seems to be missing: much of WDA is done today using FPM and this gives many possibilities for configuration, extensibility and componentization.
Best Regards,
Tobias
I agree, I think FPM complements SAPUI5
I just finished a big development on Hana and we chose ABAP FPM over SAPUI5 Gateway/XSOData as it was a better fit for the solution, WDA on its own wouldn’t have been.
jsp
Hi Sujesh,
Thanks for sharing the key differences.
Regards,
Siva
Great summary, thanks for sharing.
Hi Suresh,
Thanks for sharing the comparison summary. But i have one query.
Does SAPUI5 fit for creating ERP screens. Which is easy to create using WDA FPM.
Regards,
Shaik Shabeer Ahmed.
it can, but require 10 times more effort probably.