Java Front-End Development in 2023

TL;DR: TeaVM with Flavour Plus

• Compatible with all the top browsers
• Tiny downloads for fast startup (and great Lighthouse scores)
• Fast builds
• Immune to XSS
• Java front-end and back-end for top developer performance and easy refactoring
• Open Source
• Used by many sites: Wordii, FSE, and more

Keep Everyone Happy

As a manager, you want your team to be productive, efficient, and not have any security problems.

As a product manager, you want your team to get features out the door quickly, and not spend time on technical debt from security issues or the new front-end framework change the developers insist on.

To keep everyone happy, Java development teams should be using TeaVM with Flavour Plus in 2023. It provides a single-language, refactoring-friendly codebase to enable developer productivity. It boosts productivity while maintaining security. And its stable feature set and "no churn" releases ensure the focus stays on pleasing customers.

The Java Front-End Landscape in 2023

Vaadin? If the commercial licensing traps aren't enough to scare you off, their abandonment of a pure Java approach should. They are slowly migrating towards a mixed Java/JavaScript coding model, throwing away the value of full-stack refactoring and developer productivity.

GWT? The latest major rewrite (J2CL) has abandoned compatibility with traditional GWT, and is now focused strictly on Java to JS transpilation. It's like TeaVM without Flavour Plus. Why choose half a product? Why risk your project on a framework that Google might scrap again in a few years?

JavaFX? I enjoy using the JavaFX APIs, and appreciate the work that went in to designing a successor to Swing. There is a version now that compiles to the web. Try the demo here: Java FX Demo for the Web. You'll see it takes a while to launch, and the browser console will tell you why: it downloads over 82MB of data. This is a non-starter in a world that needs pages to launch in a few seconds max.

JSP/JSF? Yes, you can write a pure Java web app using JSP or JSF. But the moment the request comes in for fast validation or quick UI updates, you'll start down the slippery JavaScript slope. Soon you'll have a mix of code, duplication of validation logic, and no ability to refactor top to bottom. No thank you.

There's only one choice that combines stability, security, developer-friendliness, and performance: TeaVM with Flavour Plus.

The Winning Combo

TeaVM is a toolkit and build plugin to convert Java to JavaScript. It:

• Converts Java bytecode info JavaScript
• Optimizes the JavaScript:
  • Dead Code Elimination (DCE): Removing unused code to keep the download small
  • Obfuscation and Minification: Renaming symbols to short strings to protect your code and further shrink download size
• Provides core Java classes
• Allows bidirectional interoperability between Java and JavaScript

Flavour Plus is a single-page app toolkit built on TeaVM. It:

• Seamlessly merges Java business logic into HTML templates
• Simplifies complex sites through reusable Java/HTML components
• Allows for easy, SEO-friendly path-based routing between pages
• Makes calling web services as easy as calling a Java method
• Prevents XSS attacks
• Handles page errors seamlessly

Try It For Yourself

• Start with this Java Magazine Tutorial
• Read the TeaVM docs here
• Read more about Flavour Plus
• Try out sites that use TeaVM and Flavour Plus