Whenever a new web technology or for that matter, any technology comes into the scene, people or users get apprehensive about the usability and flexibility of the previous technology; It is the similar case with flex and HTML5. There have been endless discussions among the developers and users regarding HTML5 Vs. Flex and which is the better one. Often people ask whether HTML5 in its current form going to replace Flex. Before we delve deeper into the discussion, let us know a word about both web technologies; Flex and HTML5.
Flex (Flash)
Flex: the most feature-rich platform for developing Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Majority of web developers and designers are making use of Flash and Flex based applications. Having a cross platform support, the Flex has the proven record of accomplishment. Since its introduction, it has reached to a stage when it has become very strong. The ActionScript, being very rich and having strong support for Remoting, offers support for almost every web development technology available. Though there are still some drawbacks, developers find Flex a better windows-based browser than other open source platforms. Flex is an object oriented and enterprise applications development framework making use of ActionScript. It creates feature rich applications that can be run on the Flash runtime. Flex can help create multi-user, enterprise wide and data driven application.
HTML 5
HTML5 is the next version of HTML and carries a set of markup tags that support to play video and audio in the documents in the browsers itself. It also has many new rich tags and Canvas support for supporting rich contents. In fact, only because earlier version of HTML did not have support for rich content, many current plug-in based technologies including Flex, Silverlight and Java FX came in to the scene.
Why Flex is Better than HTML5
However, it took a long time for the open source community to reach this high standard. Other technologies became feature rich and stronger making it seem like a basic thing and no match for advanced technologies like Flex and Silverlight. Though HTML5 is seen as a next big thing in the browser technology, the Open source community has to put in more efforts to bring it the level other technologies like Flex are moving fast to.
However, when you ask which one is better; HTML5 or Flex, the answer depends upon your needs. You need to use the tool that meets your requirements at the moment. There are certain things to be considered while developing an application, as opposed to a website. These factors include maintainability, scalability and reliability. Moreover, Flex offers uniformity in coding and features since the Flash runtime and the code base is maintained by one company called Adobe. Flex applications, once created work well on any computer.
On the other hand, the implementation of HTML5 applications is quite a complex job because not all browsers comply with all the features and even different versions of same browser may support different features. Creating a complex application in the HTML5 can be quite challenging. Nevertheless, HTML5 is excellent, modular and flexible way to create websites. Since this is lightweight, you can create smaller websites faster than if you do with Flex.
Conclusion
In present day, Flex is definitely a preferable if you are building a large and complex application, especially, enterprise level. Otherwise, if you are creating a website that will not require much maintenance or expansion, HTML5 will be the good option.
