Struts Downloads Skyrocket in 2007

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[Apache Struts Group] Since its release in June 2001, Apache Struts (struts.apache.org) has become the most popular web framework for Java. Six years later, by any objective measure, Struts is still Java’s most popular web framework.

In February and March 2007, the group released both Struts 1.3.8 and Struts 2.0.6 to the general public, and Struts downloads zoomed to over 340,000 a month from the Apache site alone [1]. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most copies of Struts are downloaded from an network of mirrors or obtained from Maven repositories. Meanwhile, monthly page Views for the Struts website soared to over 2.1 million, up from levels of about 1.3 million page views in June 2004. Subscriptions to the Struts mailing lists hold steady at about 3,000 accounts, not counting people who use services like Nabble and GMane.

Since the framework’s debut, well over twenty books about Apache Struts have been published [2], along with hundreds of online articles, and dozens of third-party extensions [3]. Books and articles devoted to Struts 2 are already appearing. InfoQ has released “Starting with Struts2” both as a free PDF and as a hardcopy book via LuLu.com [4]. Mark Menard has started a Struts 2 cookbook [5], and sites like Rose India and ArcTech are offering extensive Struts 2 tutorials [6]. Many teams are already moving Struts 1 applications to Struts 2, including the popular Apache Roller blogging application [7].

An exciting feature of Struts 2 is configuration-free plugins. Third-party components can be added to the framework just by putting a JAR on the Java classpath. In fact, many of the framework’s advanced features are provided by plugins that ship with Struts 2. A plugin repository site is open to the public [8], and several plugins are already available, including plugins for JSON, WebFlow, Google Web Toolkit, and Guice.

While there is no lack of choice in the Java framework space, the clear winner with grassroots developers is still Apache Struts. With first-class support for Ajax, JSF, unit testing, and dependency injection, Struts 2 is an excellent choice for teams that want to step forward, without stepping away.

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