Which Oracle Tools are Hot?
I've been advising customers on Oracle tools for more than 20 years, and for many years have summarized my evaluation in a short infographic. Here is the latest score:
Oracle ADF has not achieved traction in the marketplace. As you might know, I've written several books on ADF and think it's a good enterprise tool. It is used extensively by Oracle for their SaaS applications, but many other developers just picked it up without training or thought and built horrible applications.
Oracle APEX is supported by an enthusiastic community and has taken over from Oracle Forms as the tool of choice for PL/SQL developers. It builds monolithic, database-centric applications - if that's what you need, APEX is a great tool.
Oracle Forms is the old tool that refuses to die. With Oracle E-Business suite still mainly running in Oracle Forms, Oracle has declared that Forms will be supported at least until 2030. Forms applications are hard to integrate and not very user-friendly, but get the job done.
Oracle JET is Oracle's JavaScript offering. It's a solid tool for enterprise JavaScript development. Unfortunately, most Oracle developers don't know enough JavaScript, and most JavaScript developers don't like Oracle.
Oracle MAF and MAX are tools for building mobile applications. They have been overtaken by the rapid evolution in mobile development.
Oracle VBCS is a fully cloud-based rapid application development tool that builds JavaScript applications and simple back-end REST services. With wizards for building the basics and the option to augment with hand-written code, this is a very promising tool. I'm just writing the last chapters on my VBCS book to be published by Apress.
Subscription offer: Get 50% off your first subscription. Save $24 if you buy one month or save $247 if you buy a full-year subscription. Get a new issue every week and full access to the archive.
If you are responsible for Oracle strategy within your organization, your new Oracle development effort should focus on Oracle APEX and Visual Builder Cloud Service (VBCS). If you have applications built with other Oracle technologies like Forms and ADF, there is no urgent need to retire them. But do evaluate any new requirements to see if you should start transitioning to another tool.
Best regards
Sten Vesterli
sten@vesterli.com