Overview
Mentawai is a full-stack, action-based, MVC open-source Java web framework born in June 2005. Since then It has been loyal to its philosophy which is to be a high-level web development solution without any XML or Annotations, using a centralized programmatic configuration to wire up the web stack. It embraces the KISS principle through high levels of abstraction. If you are not able to do or understand something related to the framework, the framework is the one to blame, not you.
One of the main characteristics of Mentawai is its full-stack approach since its inception, in other words, you won't be needing any other framework to implement all the diverse features of most web applications. Everything is abstracted and given by the framework out-of-the-box. This is the same approach used by other frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Play and Riffe.
By favoring a programmatic approach to configuration Mentawai eliminates XML and Annotations programming, very common to the majority of Java frameworks. The framework was the first Java web framework to follow this path back in 2005.
To summarize, Mentawai offers:
- A full-stack (complete) solution for web development, from IoC, to authentication, to DB access, to sending emails, to validation, to view tags, to Ajax, etc.
- A complete dedication to the KISS principle. It must be easy and simple, otherwise it is wrong.
- A programmatic approach to configuration through the ApplicationManager class.
- High productivity and coding joy, so you can focus on your project while the framework stays out of the way.
Try it out now by clicking here!
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"Firstly I would like to congratulate you for Mentawai, in my opinion the best solution already thought when it comes to MVC frameworks. I manage the IT team from USP's School of the Future (University of São Paulo) where we develop many web applications for distance learning. I fell in love with Mentawai since the first time I read about it. I liked the idea so much that I already began with the implementation of a medium-size project, which had very little time to be delivered. The results could not have been better. The whole team got familiar with the framework in less than 2 days! The project was entirely conceived with Mentawai and since then we have been using the framework in all our projects! The speed, scalability and intelligent way in which you can build any web application with this framework are fascinating." by Rodrigo A. Rodriguez
"I am writing from Teresina-PI to congratulate you for this excellent framework. I am the Director of Technology of the Claudino Group (the largest business group in Piauí formed by 14 companies and over 12 thousand employees) and we recently have migrated our systems to JEE. After several discussions, we decided to bet on Mentawai for its ease of use, productivity and lack of XML. We just finished our first application which took only 2 months to be completed. The forecast for the completion of all our ERP migration is the end of 2009." by Thiago Carvalho de Sousa
"I work for Sun Microsystems Ltd and I'm involved in making a decision about Web Application Frameworks. The OpenSolaris website is currently implemented using WebWorks2 and, to a limited extent, Spring. In my opinion this is too heavyweight for our needs and I'm hoping to introduce a light-weight framework for any new website development. I read about Mentawai with great interest. I share your belief that scattering the execution path for an application betweem Java and XML is a recipe for disaster. So far, Mentawai looks like a great candidate for us to use." by Gary Pennington
