I would greatly appreciate advice from anyone who could recommend their vendor choice for windows form controls.

I primarily do web programming and cannot seem to find any resources or comparisons of the different vendors and quite frankly don't think I have the knowledge to make the decision myself.

I have been slowly comparing Infragistics, Developer Express, Janus, and SyncFusion, and the process is mind boggling. Putting price aside, is anyone of these vendors ( or other vendor ) regarded as better or is this more of a user preference and depends what you are looking for?

I don't want to start any holy wars or battles, I am just looking for some advice. I realize some may be more popular than others, but popularity doesn't always mean better, many times it means more affordable.

Thanks,

Dave

I am evaluating Infragistics for a Web app and it is looking good. Haven't tried Win forms yet. Been pretty satisfied with their support also.

Thanks.

I started using the Infragistics controls for WinForms - mostly the grid control. I have to say there is a pretty steep learning curve for the object structure...even after using it for a few months I still say its pretty weird. There's a lot of flexibility in appearance though, so that's a plus.

I found a bug in the latest version of the grid and reported it. I can't say I was impressed by their support, but they're finally getting the hotfix published 3-4 weeks after I reported it. They actually forgot about the bug somehow and lost 2 weeks. Errghhhh... I guess not everyone can provide as good support as Frans does

Jeff...

Hehe that's pretty funny...two posts 3 seconds apart giving 2 different views of the same controls...hehe

Hmm... that is interesting Jeff... i thought win forms must be more easy than web forms... otherwise there is no reason we need to look at it and waste our time... right now i don't need win forms but i will give it a try... As for the object struct of the webgrid... it hasn't been that tough for me to pick up on it... but anyway thanks for the info.

Thanks.

Jeff

I find Janusys pretty good: their support is really good, and their grid is excellent.

ComponentOne is not that good, they have a lot of controls but you get a lot of assemblies in your reference list for example by including just a simple textbox on your form. Support is not that great, according to the forums. I never used infragistics, I heard good things about them.

Also take a look at www.codeproject.com A lot of controls of .NET have been extended with extra features and released for free. Perhaps a control you need is released there for free (with source! )

I'll second code project

I've used Developer Express in the past (Delphi) and was quite impressed. I'm going to be looking for a .net web grid shortly and was considering using them again as their asp.net grid looks pretty good.

Janus is definitely well thought of, because everyone I have asked has heard good things about them. Maybe everyone is hearing this from the same person

I have received conflicting reports about Infragistics. Some people love them and some people mention slow performance and bugginess. Others say the 2003 version was really buggy, but now they have stabilized the product in the 2004 version.

SyncFusion remains a blur.

DeveloperExpress seems to be popular and known for better performance and reliability compared to Infragistics, but when I have asked others who own Developer Express products about the components, they don't go into detail in comparison. They just say I have made an investment in their products. I guess once they have made the investment they don't care how it compares anymore to other vendors.

It must just come down to user preference...

Any 3rd party control is goign to be an investment.

I dont do windwos dev but web. I use Devexpress for their grid. YEs it has had its quirks but I am sure any of the components will

The one thing I like about Dev express is that suppor thas been great. I have reported a few bugs that were fixed within a week.

I have also had problems due to my lack of skills and they also helped me out

bert

I dont use windows controls but here is alink to some that look nice and are free

http://www.divil.co.uk/net/

I'll second the link to http://www.divil.co.uk/net/ and DevExpress, and add a few others I like:

http://www.developedcomponents.net/ http://www.gotdotnet.com http://www.gotdotnet.com/community/usersamples/ http://www.windowsforms.com/Default.aspx?tabindex=9&tabid=50 http://www.metabuilders.com/ http://www.asp.net/Default.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=31 http://www.fuzzysoftware.com/default.asp http://www.sliver.com/dotnet/ http://www.sellsbrothers.com/tools/ http://www.eworldui.net/ http://www.bearcanyon.com/dotnet/ http://www.michaelbrumm.com/money.html http://www.systemwebmail.com/ http://www.peterblum.com/Home.aspx http://www.wilsondotnet.com/

For learning: http://new.msdnaa.net/curriculum/repository.aspx

I'd love to hear from others. I really enjoy finding new, good controls for both WinForms and ASP.NET.

Thanks all for the suggestions! Great list, Scott

Users of Infragistics be sure to check out the faq on the llblgen website as it might be that you run into the recursive column issue.