Sencha Touch 2 or DHTMLX Touch

Question

I have done a lot of research on this topic but I can't seem to find any "deal breaking" problems with both of these frameworks.

Disadvantages of DHMTLX Touch:

• Not as popular in the market as Sencha
• Not as many controls as Sencha (but still offers the needed controls)
• Not as configurable as Sencha (I can live with the config options not supplied)

Disadvantages of Sencha Touch 2:

• Awful documentation (but that because version is just out).
• You get lost in many possibilities and combinations.
• It is a hard framework to master

Can you help me add some disadvantages to this list?

Answer 1

I cannot judge on Sencha Touch 2, but I have used Sencha touch before. I am also developing apps using DHTMLX Touch.

I would not look at the disadvantages to agree on which framework I would use.

Personally, I leaned toward DHTMLX Touch because it felt more easier to master for me.

My suggestion is you try both frameworks to develop a simple app, and find which one you think you can code faster and debug your code easier.

If you are looking at developing an enterprise app, you may want to consider taking a look at the support packages, support and its pricing are important once you start hitting limitations or bugs you cannot get over.

Answer 2

One thing I found in particular with Sencha Touch 2 was that some controls seem of low quality. Take for example the iOS style "back" button that goes in the top nav bar. Another matter which drove me crazy was that by default it forces you to use custom controls, for example, for the combobox and input types date, time, month, etc. In our case, we want to use the native controls.

On the other hand, the MVC framework behind Sencha Touch 2 is a solid proven one with lots of documentation online (either for Sencha or for ExtJS).

One thing I found a little disturbing about DHTMLX Touch was the crappy theme editor (Skin Builder) compared with jQuery's theme roller and also, some controls need some tweaking (for example the number selector) to make them look good.

Finally, we also found that from the many "Touch Frameworks" Sencha Touch 2 was one of the slowest and DHTMLX one of the fastest.