Does anyone use the Telerik set of controls ?  Ive been using Infragistics for a while and to be honest theyre rubbish !  The visual designers dont work properly, setting layouts causes endless problems.  Ive spent hours trying to figure out why when I set a tab control layout in designer, it appears completely differently at runtime.  I have to wait days for answers to problems, when they issue updates, this causes existing fuinctioality to break, the list goes on and on.  Im thinking of buying the Telerik set, has anyone used them ?

As the author of third party validation controls, I have to develop compatibility with the various suites out there. I have found the following about Telerik:

* They are the most popular suite product used by my customers... by far.

* They are excellent in their tech support responsiveness and content of their responses.

* They try to be up-front about their developments and problems.

* They respond to bugs very quickly.

* They make it easy for you to offer suggestions and concerns. You will usually get a thoughtful response so you know that they are listening.

* The one criticism, and this is a common one, is that their documentation falls short.

Just getting ready to post this thread myself.  Question to poster, are you using the lastest version of Netadvantage 2006 V2. I downloaded the demo.  Haven't had much time to play with it but the tabs look pretty decent.  I like the scheduling piece.  Of course I haven't gotten into layout that much so I'm curious if you are using their latest version.

Looks like they have some documentation and I like the way they have preset style sheets and images to where you can layout a control without having to create images, layout the style for simple stuff.

My hold ups, Telerik doesn't give you source unless you buy 5 user licenses.  1 license is expensive enough and I'd hate to have a situation where they went out of business and my company having rolled out many apps with their controls.

I've tried calling sales and haven't gotten an answer.  I left a vmail 30 minutes ago so that kind of worries, if a company won't even answer sales calls makes me worry about support.  But looks like the reponse here is that they are good. 

I'm trying to play with each product as I have time, but I'd really love to hear other feedback on both of these products or even other competitive products.

Thanks.

mis,

Could you also specify the level of support you have.  For like $249 you can get priority support with like 24 hour turn around or instant messaging.

Also, I would have to say I called into sales and they at least answered the phone.  I'm not advocating NetAdvantage because I honestly haven't made up my mind. 

The big thing about them is source code.  Telerik is 3 years old and if you don't by 5 user licenses, you don't get source which again scares me if they go belly up.

Please anybody else provide feedback.  I'm still on the fence.

Thanks.

Have you considered using other vendors?  There are plenty of choices.  Take a look in control galleries for what you need.  We are one of the other vendors.  www.obout.com

I'm definitely open to looking at other products.  But time is important and those two at least appear to have taken enough time to put together thorough websites to display their products, list pricing etc.  obout, to me the site is a little lacking.  I don't really see examples in real world that would make me believe the product is robust.  There is no pricing I see on the website or at least if there is it's somewhere that I'm not going to take in more time in trying to find it.

Plus, where is your grid control?  That's really the most important thing and also, where are examples of how to subcategorize info in a grid, how to use a combo to display a drop down grid, calendar etc.  I'm not bashing your product but you asked about other sites and the others I have looked at are about the same quality and that's what's got me down to telerik and Netadvantage.  I don't have all day everyday to go through a bunch of stuff.  Right now these products do what I need, I'm just concerned about solid performance, tech support types of stuff right now unless there is another product that gives me as much or more.  The tools contain as many menu that make configuration a snap and then at a better price.  (That in my opinion is where these two are vulnerable but the reason for the thread, I'm still waiting on feedback from others to factor in with my decision.)

I'm open to others and I appreciate the link but what I've seen wouldn't entice me to spend any more of my time considering obout as an option compared to either Telerik or NetAdvantage.

Thanks.

Thank you for your comments.  We are working on improving the site and examples - it is a constant and tedious process.  Image is everything, I suppose :)

You are right, grid is an essential product that we are missing and it is currently our top priority.

You are correct, image I guess is a part of it.  But what I'm trying to say.  I don't want to spend any more time than I need to trying to find a good product.  What the sites give me is since they have a good variety of working examples, I can look at them and say to myself, ok I run into situations to where that would be helpful, this would be helpful, that would be helpful etc.  Now the next phase is whether they're support is helpful enough to where if I need to have an overlay grid display from a button in a column.  How painful is it for me to learn or will their support respond and have me going in a couple or hours.  Or do I have to waste 2 weeks of my time trying to figure out how to do one thing.  If the latter, when I'm already learning, Project 2003, CRM 3.0, their SDK's, SBA, etc,etc, you get the picture.

Again, thanks for the response and I'll keep you on a list for future reference.

Thanks.

Hi

Well I have used both Telrik components and infragistics components in several projects But Since beginning of the year we switched everything over to telerik components.

Ofcourse the valid html and acessibillity of the components is a real plus for the Telerik components. Especially I f you have some governments clients. They ensist on the features.

Funbctionality wise both telerik and infragistics can help you develop advanced web applications on short periods of time.

Support of the Telerik compnents are by far the most superior. There is a great support community through forums and If you cannot find a solution there the Telerik support people are always very fast and supportive with code samples complete test applications or in one of my cases a temporary inbetween bugfix build to help me deliver my app on time. As for Infragistics I had to wait up to a week for soem sort of support.

I have seen numerous of my feature suggestion been included in smaller or bigger updates, this is a real pro. They realy seem to listen to there customers.

Infragistics was always very heavy in the use of too much html nested tables inline scripts and more. Telerik components also started out that way in the beginning but they got cleaner and cleaner semanticaly correct, there are stil some table based components but no more heavy nested table structures with much better use of css.

Version conflicts, updating older apps that used old Infragitiscs components was a real nightmare, missing functions changed functions missing functionalities other html code generation. I had these with Telerik as well but much less severe and better documented.

Changing designs of controls through templates or themes is much better supported in the telerik components. Either base on an internal template system or cmpletely through css.

And the thing I like best is the cleintside functionality, almost every serverside functionality has a cleintside version as well, so if there is no need for a post or callback you dont have to it.

 

 

Hi,

I'm also recommending the Telerik r.a.d.controls suite. When you have this license you can use all of the controls from the suite: 17 in total! Plus almost every year controls are beeing added to the suite.

Of course you can buy them seperate.

The support is very good. Always an answer to you questions and a great forum with lots of users that can/will help you if you're stuck with a specific solutions.

The controls are very easy to deploy (not with Infragistics) and easy to develop. Easy to setup and configure using the VS2005 designer functionality.

So, if you want some great controls with great support (if needed) then go for the Telerik Suite. You can always download a trial for your local domain!

Daniel

Thanks Daniel,

Can you please specify which versions of each companies suites you are using?  I want to make sure the comments pertain to the latest versions from each company.  I have downloaded demos from each.  They both come in suites.  For me, the scheduling piece from NetAdvantage if it works well would help with one business solution.  I found NetAdvantage very easy to install with VS 2005.

As far as setting up controls.  At least with the panelgrid, I would have to hands down give the nod to netadvantage for ease of use and getting the control figured nicely with the least amount of effort.  Still haven't figured out how to get the telerik's to display the way I want them.  Submitted a support incident on this to test their support.

I think Telerik is a good product but after testing the latest demo's the comments about the two products don't seem to fit.  I'm not knocking either one but I'd have to say with the scheduling piece and the source code available with any type of license, if support were decent I probably would go with NetAdvantage because of the scheduling piece and how easy it is to configure the controls or at least the ones I've messsed with.

Of course I would give the nod to customer concern to telerik so far.  Talking to their sales, they were more eager in things like extending the trial period if need be and a couple of other things to try and earn my business. NetAdvantage was ok but more rigid with take it or leave it type of attitude which isn't necessarily bad.

I guess, testing the support of each company is the next thing to do.  If everyone could please verify that they are talking about the latest versions of the suites from both companies.  From what I gather in the past it definitely sounds like Telerik had the upper hand but I'm still curious as to whether the Netadvantage suite has closed the gap in the latest release?

Thanks again to all.

 

 

Hello,

I've been working on this for the past couple of weeks.  With the comments on here I was all but ready to purchase Telerik but for as much money as each of these products charge, I thought it would be worth the time investigating into the products and more importantly the companies.

Please note I'm basis this off the latest 06 V2 versions of these products released in June 06.

First I read that telerik was much easier to configure, setup and deploy and I wanted to believe it but to me there is no comparision.  NetAdvantage for me was the easiest hand's down.  I got an error trying to run a page with a control after the initial install but easy to follow help told me to create a virtual directory on the dev machine and how to copy the dll's to the bin directory when publishing to a production machine.

Next my little test I was going to setup a page with a menu, toolbar, panelbar, A combo box and a grid. I created a master page and did a simple layout.  I put the menu, tool bar and panel bar on the master page.  All it has is some links and a panel with radio buttons.

A link in the panel bar when clicked would open another page that would have a combo box for users to select a customer and when selected it would open up a simple hiearchial grid.  One of the caveats for the rows in the master grid, I need a column that had a combo in it that when clicked would use the ID from the current row go out and get Project manager info and populate an overlay grid to display and be editable.

Finally when a row in the detail table was clicked, have a new grid show with details about that record.

In about an hour I was able to get most of what I wanted accomplished with the Netadvantage suite.  With Telerik I ran into a problem with themes controls being on a master page etc that I don't care to go into all the details about but bottom line over a week, about separate emails back and forth with Telerik and several phone calls to sales guy who brought in some manager and I still don't have a sample of what i thought would be fairly simple.

Again with NA, I've gotten about 85% accomplished with the NA suite. The rest I'm using as an opportunity to test Infragistics support. 

Keep in mind I wear a lot of different hats and for me to spend $1000 on products such as these, I want the granualrity to be able to do anything I want with the controls.  At the same time, if I want to put a simple panel bar, toolbar on a master page, set a style, I want to be able to do it with a few clicks of a button.  I want to have a hiearchial grid, instead of having to type 30 lines of source, it's nice to pass multiple tables in a dataset, set a relation and bind it to the grid and be done.  Net Advantage gives me that.  Telerik from what I can see is far from it.

On the flip side.  With what I have gotten to work with Telerik, when I got to the same stage with NA controls, I opened the web pages the html sent by telerik was less that that sent by NA.  But I haven't played with the product enough to see if there are default functionalities in the controls I should turn off in NA that would prevent some of this.

Source code is another big issue here because if these companies ever go belly up, it would be imperative to at the very least have the source code to handle problems and not just get totally buried.  Telerik you have to buy 5 licenses and NA comes with a single license.  (I will say Telerik has offered to throw source in if I go with their product.)

Support, again, I'm not sure the claims here but I've called Infragistics line 3 times and all three times I get a person to talk to.  Telerik, I think they have one or two persons in an office in Ma as a front to try and show a US presence but everything is in Belarus.

Also, email support is pretty much it.  Reponse times I've had ranged in the 1/2 day to couple day range.  In my issues I stepped up the heat in my responses to try and similuate a real live production problem to see if I would get an escalation and finally phone time since email was going no where.  Letting them know your dissatifaction with their support got me a "quick note" to show respect or maybe I should go with Infragistics if I didn't like the way things were being handled.

Not sure a phone call with a live person would do much good because of language barriers or at least with the escalation manager that got on the phone and was going to "make this all right".  

Infragistics I can opt to go with priority support that gives me instant message or phone support and in my eye, email will not cut it if I'm in a server down type of situation with one of my customers because of one of these products.

Which brings me to one of my final thoughts.  I have no problems buying products from any country.  In fact I think it's good for us as consumers.  The only problem I have is a company that is based in a country where they pay employees pennies on the dollar to what a company has to pay developers in the US.  Now maybe Netadvantage is a front and all their work is offshored as well but at least their presence in the us is staffed to answer my calls and support me with professionals which I can easily communicate with.  Not a prejudice type of thing but it's very frustrating being in a pressure cooker and having to focusing more on trying to understand the person you're working with versus the problem at hand.

In closing, there is no intention advocating either company over the other.  Actually, I still haven't written off Telerik because mainly of what I saw in the html code test I mentioned.  (Still sorting through it.)  Plus I've only dealt with customer service at Infragistics and I've submitted a request with two problems to resolve and I'm reserving judgement on their support and to make my final decision when finishes up.

The point of my post here is to try to share my experiences and hopefully helps others that were in my shoes a couple of weeks ago.  Also, partly I was all ready and excited to go with Telerik based on comments read here but in actually testing the products up until now, personally I've found most of the comments to be completely the opposite.

Please others with more experience with the latest products from each company, please post your opinions as well because as I mentioned I haven't totally decided on which one to go with yet but based on the reasons I've seen so far to go with telerik as mentioned the complete opposite has been true in my experience.

 

Thanks.

wanted to add a revision, Telerik has been getting back with me and trying to get a sample I'm looking for.  I felt like I needed to add that I'm sure they process request for potential customers like mine when they have time and focus more on existing customer.   I really think they try but for me I'm just scared because situations we get into email support only is not good enough. 

But I will say, I submitted the same request to Infragistics on Sat.  Today I was thinking their support was going to be lacking as mentioned here but actually the problem was their response went to my junk email so their support responded in a day with a sample and I'm not a paying customer.  Been a busy day and haven't had time to go through the sample to see how much effort they put into helping but the response delays others mentioned, I wish you guys would post more details about the situation.  Also what type of support agreement you had.  The priority support agreement or incidents you can get immediate support.

Having said that, either company would probably be a good choice.  There are things such as methods of support, ease of use etc.  With some controls that aren't as simple to configure as I would have though for somebody who has never used them I would have thought would have been better.  But telerik admitted it and a couple of other controls are dated and are expected to be a lot more robust.

More later if I run across it.

Need to make a correction or two.  Telerik is based in Bulgaria not Belarus.  I'm not sure what labor rates there.  Plus the CEO took the time to respond to me about their investments etc so now I'm comfortable with the company on that front.  (Understand most reading could give 2 cents for my thoughts on that but I posted comments that it was a factor so now I've been educated I just want to reflect it in the same post.)

My complaints about email support being the only avenue it appears will be a short lived concern.  It appears they are working on opening a US support center.

Also, concerns about not getting source code under 5 users license according to Telerik will be addressed as well.

Also, to be fair, I haven't spent a penny on the product and after voicing my concern they have stepped it and got me pretty much what I was looking for and answered a lot of questions the didn't have to.

With those comments out of the way some follow up comments about the actual product.

NA
In my opinion for configuring controls I think NA has an advantage here in simplicity and ease if you using a Smart Tag window for the configuration.  One example is the panel bar.  (Telerik informed me they are working on this.)  If you live in the source page of the web forms, this won't be much to think about for you.

Rolling out the controls appears to pretty much a toss up between both the new products.

The scheduling piece, even though I haven't tested it seems as if it could have some promise in certain situations.

Like the combo boxes already having the grids as drop downs.

Like the easy setup of using a template for a edit window in the grids.

Telerik
Like the progress control.   
Although I have spent much time looking at it, as it appears they send less html to the client.   
The Ajax control concept.  (Haven't tested it but like the concept.)
I may be mistaken but I think all Telerik's controls have their own dll's and do not use and shared ones which to me and I think somebody mentioned earlier, this to me would be more ideal in upgrade situations.

Instead of going on, I'm just going to sum my thoughts up and make a suggestion to both Telerik and NetAdvantage.  My experience over the past two weeks, I going with either of the products you would be ok.  I've had good experience with support and customer service from both companies. 

If you're looking for a product, figure out what's important to you, use the thread as a base and call the companies because both seem eager to please.

For anybody at Telerik or NetAdvantage that may be still looking at this page.  You guys seem to actually have a friendly competition.  One way that might benefit new customers such as myself in the future, what about doing up a friendly product comparisons page on your web site.  Tell us what you think makes your product better than your competitors.

Would help us the customers and also I'm sure it would stoke the competitvie juices of your internal staff trying to get them to one up each other.

I for one would not hesitate going with either product.  For me I'm going to lay out some interfaces and see which one lets me do what I need to the most efficient at the same time not sacrificing performance in the end result.  If everything is equal, then look at the entire suite and see which has what I think will be most relevant to what I'll be doing.

If still relelatively equal, then I guess I'll resort to the trusty coin flip.

 

I finally ended up going with Telerik.  They have addressed all my concerns/complaints and in some case b!tch!ng.  :)

What ended up interesting me the most is the amount of html the pages I created using their controls generated over the others.

Plus as I mentioned, I think they need some form of IM or phone support for emergency type situations which they've said they are diligently are working on.  I'd have to say their interest in me as a customer is about the best I've ever had.  And trust me I'm hard to please.  Like the rest of us they have some areas with room for improvement, but I doubt you'll find another company as interested in trying to please everbody and make you as happy as a customer they appear to be committed to doing.