Silverlight vs Flex

Question

My company develops several types of applications. A lot of our business comes from doing multimedia-type apps, typically done in Flash. However, now that side of the hous

Answer 1

I think you should look at Silverlight as a long-term play, just as Microsoft seems to be doing. There's an obvious balance on when to use Silverlight vs. Flash when you're concerned about reach and install base, but here are some reasons Silverlight is a good direction to move in:

1. Second mover advantage - Just as Microsoft built a "better Java" with .NET, they're able to look at how you'd design a RIA plugin from scratch, today. They have the advantage of knowing how people use the web today, something the inventors of Flash could never have accurately guessed. Flash can add features, but they can't realistically chuck the platform and start over.

2. Developer familiarity - While Silverlight is a new model, it's not entirely unfamiliar to developers. They'll "get" the way Silverlight works a lot more quickly than they'll understand firing up a new development environment with a new scripting language and new event paradigms.

3. Being rid of the timeline model in Flash - Flash was originally built for keyframe based animations, and while there are ways to abstract this away, it's at the core of how Flash works. Silverlight ditches that for an application-centric model.

4. ScottGu - ScottGu is fired up about Silverlight. Nuff said.

5. Cool new features - While Silverlight still has some catching up to do with Flash on some obvious features (like webcam / mic integration, or 3d / graphics acceleration), there are some slick new technologies built in to Silverlight - Deep Zoom is one example. I'm seeing more "revolutionary" technologies on the Silverlight side, while Flash seems to be in maintenance mode at this point.

Answer 2

Silverlight programmer's don't know what they're missing out on, when it comes to Flex. Silverlight lacks the component model and event triggering capabilites that Flex has. Using XNA, and C#, a friend of mine has to jump through all kinds of hoops to get his Silverlight application to work. Then, it has to be handed off to a designer to get it to look half way decent.

Listen to the deepfriedbytes.com podcasts on Silverlight, and you'll hear how even a couple guys that really push Silverlight, acknowledge some of these issues. (I think, if I recall correctly, one of the guys works for Microsoft, but I could be wrong - I listened to it last week). They agree that Silverlight isn't quite ready for any huge applications, in its current state.

I would go with Flex, for a nice clean, straightforward approach - especially if you're already familiar with Flash and ActionScript 3.0. Flex makes alot more sense, in my opinion - Silverlight still has to mature.

Answer 3

Although I have done work with Silverlight and am pretty excited about the ability to have apps living outside of the browser, one huge benefit of AIR is that is provides access to native drag and drop functionality. This allows you to build very user-friendly image or document uploads features (e.g. Flickr uploader). From what I heard, MS is not focusing on that kind of support yet (i.e. no plans announced).

Answer 4

We went through this same issue and Flex won hands down. Our .NET developers were concerned at first, but after working so long in the pain of Ajax and JavaScript, they now LOVE and really enjoy working in Flex.

Here's a simple test for you . . . try to find at least 3 examples of real-world Silverlight applications (that aren't games, video players or gadgets). Then do the same for Flex.

Answer 5

I think Silverlight and XAML is preferable to ActionScript, and though I'm not familiar with ActionScript IDE's, I am familiar with VS2008 and Expression Web/Blend, and they are very good development environments and getting better all the time. I would go with Silverlight, and I think the key to getting users to install the plug-in is to have a good plug-in detect page that explains what SL is and why they need it. For an example of this, go to http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/ and try it with your SL plug-in disabled.

Answer 6

If you know .NET, Silverlight 3.0 is the way to go. I'm using it and I love it. I don't have to mess with AJAX or JS BTW (I have no idea what that guy was refering to, maybe SL 1.0) For data it's mostly async WCF calls (LINQ to SQL behind WCF) or XML files or RIA Services. It let's you use most shader FX, it has styles, control templates and the native access windows/mac clipboard. I can run high def video and most processes run very well even under slow CPUs. I also enjoy the data binding, control binding and the observable collections save me a lot of time. PLUS i can use LINQ, major time saver, not to mention using Visual Studio to debug with.

I'm developing enterprise .NET applications, so I know my install base and they will install the add-in (30 seconds usually). For a front end website, you may lose some users who don't want to install silverlight or don't run Mac or Windows. You CAN have apps with SL outside of the browser with 3.0.

I may be a biased .NET guy but I've been developing so quickly I have to recommend it.