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
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 Gat