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I view Kendo as an attempt to create an all in one solution to UI, primarily used by 'enterprise' type companies (i.e. not very tech savvy). This is a fine goal but...
I hate the imperative syntax. The Razor based Imperative syntax for creating Kendo components is god awful. Simply look at what configuring one of those ridiculous grids imperatively looks like.
But you say, there is declarative syntax! Until you start needing some of the edge cases and you will start to find missing documentation that exists in the imperative syntax documentation but not declarative. There are countless subtle differences just enough so that you may spend hours trying to fix a damn kendo grid.
MVVM Kendo: Kendo has a half baked solution for MVVM which does not compare to other open source solutions. You are better off with using a more standard open source solution where there is an actual community surrounding the development.
I used to keep a list of all of the bugs I had found upon using declarative MVVM kendo, but it's been a long time and I will absolutely never work anywhere that uses Kendo again so I brain dumped all of my specific kendo knowledge.
When all things are considered, KendoUI trys to hold your hand very tightly, and it does a great job and spinning up complicated grids. When you want something that isn't explicitly accounted for, or combine things in novel ways - you are going to be in a world of hurt.
UI Kits I like better:
I think you will be better off with any widely used UI kit. I've played around with Material Design and Twitter Bootstrap. These are both significantly lighter weight than Kendo.
Over All Frameworks/Libraries to replace the MVVM portion:
I've fallen favor of React as opposed to Kendos attempt at databinding. There's tons of great resources out there for React so I won't even try to go into it but it's been a pleasure.
Kendo also gives multiple ways to initiate their widgets, one of them being the standard jquery widget way.
Also bootstrap is more than just CSS, which is why it's distributed with a JS file. Samem with material design.
Frankly, I think the approach Kendo takes trys to do way to much, and in effect they make it difficult to do beyond what was accounted for.
If you simply are creating internal tools for a business to use and don't care about aesthetics or having great control/UX experience, Kendo is possibly an easy hand held solution for your company. On the other hand, the type of company who has this as a goal is likely a terrible company to work for and will not lead to very interesting work.
> If you simply are creating internal tools for a business to use and don't care about aesthetics or having great control/UX experience, Kendo is possibly an easy hand held solution for your company. On the other hand, the type of company who has this as a goal is likely a terrible company to work for and will not lead to very interesting work.
Works on all major os-es, although it may be bit harder to setup. Also handles transparent SSL interception.