Web GUI Development Options

Intro

There are numerous options for developing applications for the i which use a Web based Graphical User Interface.

Product/Language	Vendor	Description	Free/Open Source/Commercial	Commercial Support Available	Suitable for 5250 Migration	Rapid Application Development	non-RPG skills needed
IceBreak	System & Method	IceBreak is the only native Web and Application Server for RPG and Cobol on IBM i. Is easy to learn because you can reuse existing legacy business logic and programming skills. IceBreak creates genuine IBM i™ objects with no additional scripting or overhead. The innovative technology allows an easy integration and web enablement of existing 5250 applications. With IceBreak you can build any type of web application – and integrate to any web based solution or unit. Is delivered with a built-in Web Server and Web Application Server. It’s easy to install – no additional software, hardware or configuration is needed.	Commercial / Free Commmunity Edition / Free Trial	Yes	Yes, but conversion not automated	No	HTML/CSS/JavaScript/ExtJS/Etc.
PHP	Zend	PHP is an open source general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for Web development to produce dynamic Web pages	F/OSS or Commercial	Yes	Optional not F/OSS	No	PHP/HTML/CSS/JavaScript
ProfoundUI	ProfoundLogic	Profound UI is a full-featured graphical user interface platform based on IBM's RPG Open Access, the ground-breaking enhancement to RPG that opens IBM i applications (also known as iSeries, System i and AS/400) up to Web interfaces. The platform offers developers an easy, natural method for creating connected IBM i applications that deliver rich user experiences regardless of project complexity or organization size.	Commercial	Yes	Yes, RPG OA	Yes, Drag and drop	None
RPGsp	ProfoundLogic	RPGsp is an award-winning rapid Web development environment that has been proven and trusted by thousands of IBM i users. Whether you need to extend your existing legacy programs or build new applications, RPGsp can deliver phenomenal results in a short amount of time.	Commercial	Yes	Yes, Converter	Yes, Wizards	HTML/CSS/JavaScript
Web Object Wizard (WOW)	planetJCorp	WOW creates data driven business applications using data from IBM DB2, SQL Server, Oracle, MYSQL and other RDBMS. WOW runs on application servers such as IBM Websphere, Apache Tomcat, and Weblogic.	Commercial w/free CE edition available	Yes	No	Yes, Wizards	SQL
CGIDEV2	Easy400	CGIDEV2 is a free and open source IBM i based program development toolkit that facilitates the development of interactive web-based programs using RPG ILE or Cobol (using the older CGIDEV version) as the back-end Common Gateway Interface language. The functionality of this toolset is incorporated into an RPG ILE program by means of a service program that contains all of the procedures required to read input from a browser, generate and send the appropriate response back to the browser. CGIDEV2 is commonly used to generate static or interactive HTML/DHTML pages but it can also produce CSV, XML, Excel-XML and other text based files.	F/OSS	No	No	Yes, via Renaissance Framework	HTML/CSS/JavaScript

This article is a stub. You can help by editing it.