14 months ago I was not feeling very comfortable with the 2000ish approach of web apps development: see post looking-for-web-framework Namely having a backend web framework which spits HTML to the browser with a bit of javascript as icing sugar to give a bit of interactivity. Using Flex on a large scale project gave me a very good impression: Having a front end dedicated framework that you can test by itself without a backend was very productive I find the idea of discussing the API between the backend and front-end very sound With the nowadays processing power of end user devices, I like the idea of shifting the rendering processing load to the end user's terminal. At the time, June 2012, I wanted to evaluate some options for web development but pure Javascript did not even came to my mind. On a comparative article from JavaSPEKTRUM - Java Rich Client , Wicket was qualified as the technology that would allow to build a powerful user interface for the least complex