Top 10 Controls for ASP.NET Developers

Introduction

Recently I was asked to provide a top 10 list of ASP.NET
controls. When I first started thinking about how in the
world I was going to narrow down all of the
available ASP.NET controls, I must admit, I was a bit
overwhelmed. I decided my first step was to decide what
types of controls needed to be on the list, so I narrowed it
down to the essentials. That is, controls that ASP.NET developers are most
likely to need for the average development project like
navigation menus and ASP.NET AJAX.

My next criteria to narrow my focus was to look at each
type of control by excluding everything free. Not only did
this narrow down the field, it also made it likely that
everything I considered would work out of the box and have
adequate documentation and support. From there I took in to
consideration everything that you would expect like
features, ease of development, documentation, support, ease
of deployment, ASP.NET version compatibility, and even
price.

And the Winners Are

1. AJAX

This is kind of a weird one. Most

of the major third party controls are AJAX enabled already.

What I was looking for here was a way to AJAXify any page

whether it be with standard ASP.NET controls or third party

controls. It turns out there is really only one good option

here

.

2. Menu

Of all the basic controls that you

could ever need for your ASP.NET website, menus undoubtedly

top the list. I had three major considerations when

reviewing menu controls. First, it needs to be easily styled

using CSS. Second, it has to have the ability to be

databound. Lastly, it has to be search engine friendly.

Unfortunately, there were three controls that met my

criteria and have virtually identical features. So, ladies

and gentlemen, we have a three way tie between the

,

, and

.

3. Sitemap

Let

’

s face it, every site needs a

sitemap these days in order to be search engine friendly.

Now, you can always use the built-in ASP.NET sitemap

features However, they are a bit cumbersome to use,

especially if you have a large number of pages. What I was

mainly looking for was a way to improve the standard page-

full-of-links look while maintaining a search engine

friendly structure. I must say that when I went searching

for a winner I was surprised that sitemap controls were few

and far between. Because of their slightly easier

development the winner in this category is

. However,

the

was a close

second.

4. Tab Strip

If you want a truly rich and

intuitive UI you have probably used or looked into tab

controls. For the most part, tab controls consist of the tab

control itself that displays the tabs and handles clicks, a

container for handling the different panels that correspond

to the tabs, and page view panels that contain the actual

content for each tab. Since most tab strip controls function

basically the same way I wanted a control that was AJAX

enabled, easy to develop, and easy to style. Again, this one

was close between Telerik, and DevExpress. They both have

similar features like hierarchical tabs, scrolling,

databinding, etc. However, I gave the nod to

because

of their

and

options.

5. Graphs & Charts

Charts and graphs are

very popular among ASP.NET control suites. Everyone has them

and they all have the same basic functionality. However,

there is one chart

&

graph package that I have found to

be more complete than the rest,

. This package has

everything you need to make beautiful charts and graphs. It

has more chart types than you will probably ever use

including pie charts, bar graphs and even animated graphs.

This, however, is a stand-alone software package. Unlike

most of the other winners on our list this one is not part

of a suite. Dundas only makes a few specialized controls

for.NET, so what they do offer is very focused and complete.

If you don

’

t use charts and graphs that much in your

development or you just don

’

t want to shell out the cash for

a stand-alone control package then both DevExpress and

Telerik also have excellent chart and graph controls in

their suites.

6. Scheduler

Another close one here between

DevExpress and Telerik. Notice a trend? The nod for this one

goes to the

. While the

features and style options are virtually identical, better

performance and ease of development gave the edge to

DevExpress.

7. Editor

This is for sites that need any kind of

web-enabled content editing. Here I like the

. The

control is intuitive and feature rich. Deployment is as

simple as drag and drop. It has excellent spell checking

capability as well as customizable toolbars. It is an all-

around good editor that is versatile enough to apply to a

broad range of situations.

8. Data Grids

Control developers have been

looking for way to improve the data grid ever since ASP.NET

was first released. It has become a cornerstone for ASP.NET

development and probably carries more weight when

considering controls than all the others. Based on features,

performance and ease of development the winner is the

hands

down.

9. Reporting

This was an interesting one. I

’

d

venture to say that just about everyone that reads this

article does not have any great love for creating reports.

Therefore, I gave a lot of consideration to ease of

development, just out of shear sympathy for anyone that has

to develop reports. Ease of development coupled with the

fact that reporting is a separate suite with Telerik gave

the win to the

.

10. Input

This one is kind of unique in that

it encompasses multiple controls like input boxes, combo

boxes, list boxes, date pickers, color pickers, sliders,

etc. Since all controls that fit in this category are almost

feature identical, it came down to pretty much just a

numbers game. That means that

gets the

win.

Conclusion

You should know that all of the four major players in
third party ASP.NET controls industry, ComponentOne, DevExpress, Infragistics, and Telerik, all sell their controls in suites.
If you are looking for products for sale individually,
DevExpress is the only company that offers a broad range of
licensing options. Since purchasing a suite is what you will
most likely be faced with I thought it might be helpful to
provide an overall winner. Therefore, based on how each
company performed in our list, the overall number and
relevance of controls in their suites, documentation,
support, and the price; Telerik wins the overall award for
Best Suite… Barely. My hope is that this top 10 list helps
you make an informed decision on what controls to purchase.
As with any informed decision, I suggest you download and
try each of the big four suites for yourself or at least the
top 2, DevExpress and Telerik. They all have downloadable
trial versions.