Migrate From Swing

Unlock the value of your existing Swing application

The Challenge

Legacy desktop apps hinders your digital progress

A lot has happened since 1998 – the year when Swing extended Java's core idea of 'write once, run anywhere' into the realm of graphical user interfaces. Despite Oracle's pledge to support Swing until foreseeable future, the need to migrate has become much more urgent than any timeline would suggest.

The following 4 key areas have reached a de facto status in modern web app development. With Swing, you are missing out on them.

Economies of scale in the cloud

Cloud providers can purchase compute and storage in massive quantities which drive down the total cost of ownership far below what ordinary companies can achieve.

Agility to innovate by integrating with latest technologies

A range of tools such as a content delivery network, 2-factor authentication, Blockhain and machine learning are easier to set up in the cloud than by yourself.

Ease of upgrading your own product

Ease of deployment also leads to easy upgrades, effortless experimentation with new features and the opportunity to roll back when necessary.

Your customers expect web-enablement

Your customers and users increasingly expect the convenience of SaaS models, and products that are not web-enabled project the opposite of state of the art.

Swing’s technical relevance is eroding

The shift from desktop to mobile caused the end for the desktop-only era. As the demand decreased, the supply for desktop development skills, crucial for Swing applications, has diminished.
With Swing, there’s a lack of responsiveness on different platforms – in both the application performance and their development.
In 1999, a Swing application could work on almost any graphics-enabled computing device without having to be recompiled. Nowadays less than half of devices sold are able to run Swing.
By staying with Swing, your IT infrastructure becomes complex and costly to maintain.

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How can Vaadin help?

Vaadin brings the simplicity and productivity of traditional Java desktop development to the web. Our world-class consulting team is ready with expertise, insight and best practises to help you minimize risks and increase your teams productivity.

View our free PoC offer for eligible companies or download our whitepaper for more information.

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Customer case

Procountor made a UX-first accounting software with Vaadin

When Apple dropped support for their own JVM, we had to start supporting a Swing version of our app as well. The abstraction layer made it a natural choice for us to do the same with Vaadin, knowing that the API was so similar to both Swing and AWT. And that's what we did. Quite successfully I might add.