Devexpress or Telerik Controls comparison

First the disclaimer - I work for DevExpress. And I'll try to give you my fair answer because the choice and decision is up to you.

Generally, both Suites will seem similar in terms of products and features. However there are some key differences which can be advantageous for you. Before you make a decision, I recommend:

1) Decide which functionality is needed

2) Which controls you are going to use or need

3) Ask support whether the features you need are supported. I know that there can be a situation, when everything works OK, but there is just a small thing which must be implemented ... and you can't.

Please spend a little time to research before making a decision. If you choose our controls, our support team will be glad to assist you.

One of the key benefits of using our tools: - easy to get started - lots of resources to learn - intuitive API, setting up complex scenarios is easier - great community - excellent support team

Hmm, I was going to write a long answer about ASP.NET DevExpress controls ... Being the author of some of them, I like them :). Really. They are really good. Hope, you will make a decision which will bring you the benefit.

Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions and we'll be glad to help you.


Just to set the tone here: I work for Telerik and am involved with their ASP.NET (AJAX and MVC) as well as XAML products so keep that in mind :)

Since both companies suites tend to be fairly similar I highly recommend trying both of them out. Generally when I try out a 3rd party vendor I try to do the following:

  • Check out the features of the controls
  • Use their Documentation and Examples
  • Check out the community (forums)
  • Try out support (submit a ticket just to see the kind of response I get)

Usually after this I have a pretty good idea whether or not I like the product or not!

As for Telerik-specific items I'll keep to the categories you mentioned to make it easier :)

Feature set

Since you mentioned that you're interested in ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight I say look over our demo pages and see what we offer. Every demo has the source code listed on the page (for ASP.NET products it's below the actual demo, for Silverlight there's a "Code" button in the upper right-hand corner of the demo). This will give you an idea of the features, as well as the code that goes into the controls.

  • ASP.NET AJAX
  • ASP.NET MVC
  • Silverlight

Ease of use

Whenever I get feedback from any of our customers they almost always mention how quick and easy it is to get started with our controls. However, what one person thinks is easy an intuitive might not be the case for another, so I say try out the components and see what you think! :D

Documentation

Our documentation is full of examples and more detailed information about the controls. Again, I definitely recommend using the documentation for the products to see what you think:

  • ASP.NET AJAX
  • ASP.NET MVC
  • Silverlight

Pricing and Licensing

Our license is on a per-developer basis, with no royalty fees or anything like that for distribution. We try to make your life as easy as possible, and if you're working on a team where multiple people come in and out of the team we have the ability for you to transfer a license to a new individual coming in on the team.

Since you are looking at three products I highly recommend looking into the Premium Collection or even Ultimate Collection (for a full list of what's included, see this page) since you get quite a deal on these packages.

Also, our trials are fully functional and do not expire (only a trial message pops up once in a while) so feel free to use and abuse the components to your hearts content!

So that's it for my wall of text, good luck with the evaluation!