SAP UI5 VS WebDynpro

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	Not supported
Models	Supports OData,& JSON	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

12 Comments

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Jason Moors January 30, 2014 at 1:05 pm

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

like (1)
John Patterson January 30, 2014 at 1:23 pm

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

like (0)
1. Sujesh K. C. Post authorJanuary 31, 2014 at 5:45 am
  
  Hello John,
  
  WDJ is not supported on mobile devices.
  
  regards,
  
  Sujesh
  
  like (0)
  1. Glen Simpson February 10, 2014 at 10:27 am
    
    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
    
    like (0)
Mikael von Ketelhodt January 31, 2014 at 7:01 am

Hi Sujesh,

Nice overview of the key differences, thank you for sharing 🙂 .

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Martin Cook February 10, 2014 at 10:37 am

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

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Tobias Trapp August 3, 2014 at 7:19 pm

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

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1. John Patterson August 5, 2014 at 9:49 am
  
  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
  
  like (0)
Sivakarthikeyan S August 8, 2014 at 5:07 am

Hi Sujesh,

Thanks for sharing the key differences.

Regards,

Siva

like (0)
Jitendar G October 20, 2014 at 6:44 pm

Great summary, thanks for sharing.

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shabeer ahmed December 2, 2014 at 4:45 am

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.

like (0)
1. Jun Wu August 12, 2015 at 3:31 am
  
  it can, but require 10 times more effort probably.
  
  like (0)