---
title: Overview
order: 1
layout: page
---

[[intro.overview]]
= Overview

Vaadin Framework is a Java web application development framework that is
designed to make creation and maintenance of high quality web-based user
interfaces easy. Vaadin supports two different programming models: server-side
and client-side. The server-driven programming model is the more powerful one.
It lets you forget the web and program user interfaces much like you would
program a desktop application with conventional Java toolkits such as AWT,
Swing, or SWT. But easier.

While traditional web programming is a fun way to spend your time learning new
web technologies, you probably want to be productive and concentrate on the
application logic. The server-side Vaadin framework takes care of managing the
user interface in the browser and the __AJAX__ communications between the
browser and the server. With the Vaadin approach, you do not need to learn and
deal directly with browser technologies, such as HTML or JavaScript.

[[figure.intro.architecture]]
.Vaadin application architecture
image::img/architecture.png[width=100%, scaledwidth=100%]

<<figure.intro.architecture>> illustrates the basic architectures of web
applications made with Vaadin. The server-side application architecture consists
of the __server-side framework__ and a __client-side engine__. The engine runs
in the browser as JavaScript code, rendering the user interface, and delivering
user interaction to the server. The UI logic of an application runs as a Java
Servlet in a Java application server.

As the client-side engine is executed as JavaScript in the browser, no browser
plugins are needed for using applications made with Vaadin. This gives it an
edge over frameworks based on Flash, Java Applets, or other plugins. Vaadin
relies on the support of Google Web Toolkit for a wide range of browsers, so
that the developer does not need to worry about browser support.

Because HTML, JavaScript, and other browser technologies are essentially
invisible to the application logic, you can think of the web browser as only a
thin client platform. A thin client displays the user interface and communicates
user events to the server at a low level. The control logic of the user
interface runs on a Java-based web server, together with your business logic. By
contrast, a normal client-server architecture with a dedicated client
application would include a lot of application specific communications between
the client and the server. Essentially removing the user interface tier from the
application architecture makes our approach a very effective one.

Behind the server-driven development model, Vaadin makes the best use of AJAX (
__Asynchronous JavaScript and XML__, see
<<dummy/../../../framework/architecture/architecture-technology#architecture.technology.ajax,"AJAX">>
for a description) techniques that make it possible to create Rich Internet
Applications (RIA) that are as responsive and interactive as desktop
applications.

In addition to the server-side Java application development, you can develop on
the client-side by making new widgets in Java, and even pure client-side
applications that run solely in the browser. The Vaadin client-side framework
includes Google Web Toolkit (GWT), which provides a compiler from Java to the
JavaScript that runs in the browser, as well a full-featured user interface
framework. With this approach, Vaadin is pure Java on both sides. ((("Google Web
Toolkit")))

Vaadin uses a client-side engine for rendering the user interface of a
server-side application in the browser. All the client-server communications are
hidden well under the hood.
((("JavaScript")))
Vaadin is designed to be extensible, and you can indeed use any 3rd-party
widgets easily, in addition to the component repertoire offered in Vaadin. In
fact, you can find hundreds of add-ons in the Vaadin Directory.

Vaadin allows flexible separation between the appearance, structure, and
interaction logic of the user interface. You can design the layouts either
programmatically or declaratively, at the level of your choosing. The final
appearance is defined in __themes__ in CSS or Sass, as described in
<<dummy/../../../framework/themes/themes-overview.asciidoc#themes.overview,"Themes">>.

We hope that this is enough about the basic architecture and features of Vaadin
for now. You can read more about it later in
<<dummy/../../../framework/architecture/architecture-overview.asciidoc#architecture.overview,"Architecture">>,
or jump straight to more practical things in
<<dummy/../../../framework/application/application-overview.asciidoc#application.overview,"Writing
a Server-Side Web Application">>.
