Third party WPF controls: Devexpress vs Telerik [closed]

Question

We had to make a quite similiar decision a few months ago. We were using WinForms, the Microsoft Composite UI Application Block and DevExpress WinForms. For our new application, created new from scratch, we decided to use WPF (without PRISM) and we were especially in need of some grids, so we used DevExpress WPF Controls.

This was imho a good and a bad decision.

The good part:

• You can use the controls in a very similiar way you are used to. There are some differences, but you get used to them quickly. This is a huge plus, because it took us quite some time to get used to them while using the WinForm controls.

• The controls, especially the grids, are useable as the WinForms controls. If your users are used to them, the transition is very smooth.

• Applying one of the provided themes is very simple and you get a good looking solution without much annoyance. They apply to pure WPF controls, too, so the whole application looks consistent. We are still using mostly Windows XP, the themes apply to this as well, which is exceptional useful for us.

The bad part:

• We expected the DevExpress WPF controls to provide the same control coverage as the WinForm controls did. The DevExpress WPF controls at that time had version number 10.1, and we were disappointed that some controls were missing completely (for example TreeList, Schedulers, Passwordbox or the very useful LookUpEdit). While the later three are available with version 10.2, TreeLists still aren't there. If you are looking for additional controls from the WinForms package than the ones listed, it is a good idea to check if they exist for the DX WPF controls first.

• Some parts made the impression that they were done quickly. There were some quickfixes neccessary to get the controls running the way we intended to use them. The good thing is that most of these problems are solved with 10.2.

• The documentation and the support center for the WPF controls feels less complete than the WinForms documentation. While this is probably just my personal impression, I was almost always able to find an answer to a certain problem I had with the WinForms controls on the DX website, I'm not that succesful with the WPF controls. The support team is as helpful as always, though.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive, those were the things that immediately came to my mind.

So, what would I do if I had to do the same decision again? I would very likely use DevExpress again. Most negative things that bugged me were fixed with version 10.2, so the controls are quite usable now. I especially like that you can use your former experience with the WinForm controls (with limitations, of course). The later was also the primary reason for buying the DX components. Unfortunately, I don't know the Telerik controls enough to say anything about them, so if someone has experience with both, especially with switching from DX to Telerik that would surely be a very interesting information.

We're not using the MVVM pattern with our grids, as the "traditional" way of loading and displying data is sufficient enough for us. Some of our grids contain 100k+ values, the performance of the grid is imho always ok. The controls disn't look like they had a build in support for MVVM, if you're trying to use it it looks like you have to do everything manually. Maybe 10.2 changed things here, I haven't checked, but I don't think so.

We used our own implementation for localisation, so I don't know about the DX localization support.

I evaluated several WPF control packages, Telerik, devExpress, Xceed, SyncFusion, etc. We were primarily interested in a grid control that could handle a large amount of data and have good performance. In a simple test, we loaded 120,000 items into the grid and did a group on the fields.

DevExpress was the fasting loading compared to the others. It took 15 secs to load, while the others where all about 45 seconds. DV would group in 7 seconds, while the others took nearly 45 seconds. A couple of the other controls packages locked up! (fyi, the data was being loaded from Mongo).

When bringing up the filter dialog for a column on Telerik, it would extend beyond the bottom of the screen without any scrollbar. Also, cicking on a filter item in the dropdown combo would immediately do the filter then rather than waiting for me to select the others. Therefore, if selecting 5 items, it would take 5 times as long.

I wish DevExpress would have a checkbox dropdown filter option (like Excel). You can only select a single value, but it does have a very nice filter dialog that allows you to do more complex filters. Still, would like to be able to easily check a few values and move on quickly.

Telerik integrated nicely with Sql Server using Entity Framework. It's paging, sorting, filtering, etc. integrated directly with EF and had Sql Server do these operations at the database. Very nice! I monitored the sql commands as doing operations. It you are viewing large amounts of data on sql server, this may be the one control that really does this well. (Except for the dropdown filter combo that does not handle large data very well). We are using Mongo for our large data, so this did not apply to us. We did have a few exceptions with Telerik when testing data. DevExpress does not have a paging option unless you it yourself.

In the end we chose DV due to performance reasons with large data and stability.

I would definitely go for DevExpress, their components are in my opinion nicer and with better APIs than Telerik ones, then let's don't forget you already know their object model, naming conventions and APIs from the windows forms world, this is not a minor thing because you will most likely reuse your know-how and this is far more important and valuable.

The Telerik RadDataGrid supports MVVM and the command pattern properly straight out of the box. The DevExpress one requires a lot of extra code before you can use MVVM with it properly.

I am using Telerik and DEVExpress both. Based on my experience, DevExpress is better in win form controls. But, Telerik is more better than in Asp.NET controls. DevExpress rendering result on the server controls are very messy in client site. They create button control using the table tag.

DevExpress WPF is slow and not optimized performance wise. I've tried rich text edit control of both DevExpress and Telerik. Telerik control outperforms DevExpress in terms of performance.

I was exactly in the same position few months ago when evaluating WPF controls for a new WPF project. I’m not sure if you have made any decision, but I can offer my experiences with Telerik and hope it helps.

In my project, one particular need was to use TreeListView and there were limited reputed vendors provided this control. I spent some time doing researches and found Telerik which offered for what I needed. I downloaded the trial and used it for 2 months, contacted their support, checked their forums. I can tell you that they have excellent supports! Usually the supports provided solution with sample codes. Like all developers, we would encounter roadblock, we studied the API, documentations, and examples. For me, support is important as it saves development time! My feedback is Telerik provides great UI controls with vast collection and customization choices, and great technical supports. However, their documentation isn’t so good. Also, watch out performance in WPF controls, my experience is it has some performance hit if you have large data source. Be sure to do some prototypes in critical architectural areas if performance is the key requirements.

Just give it a try and see if it meets your needs or not.

BTW, I’m also ComponentOne customer. Just get the controls for what you need if it can save you time. The important thing is which helps ship your product on time! Hope this helps.