Kendo UI is a JavaScript UI toolkit that allows users to build responsive web-based apps integrated into their framework of choice (jQuery, Angular, React, or Vue). The vendor’s value proposition is that Kendo UI offers a large library of popular and configurable components ranging from sophisticated grids and charts to basic buttons, so users don’t have to waste development time building their UI. The vendor also says the large library of customizable themes means users can easily deploy a…
$999
per developer, royalty-free
Syncfusion® Essential Studio®
Score 6.1 out of 10
N/A
Syncfusion Essential Studio is a suite of 1,900+ software components and frameworks for developing web, mobile, and desktop applications. Its UI controls are designed to be flexible and are optimized for high performance. Syncfusion enables users to speed the creation of modern user interfaces and read and write common file formats. Syncfusion states they have supplied components to 1 million+ developers across more than 30,000 organizations around the world, and the company offers…
$395
per month
Pricing
Progress Kendo UI
Syncfusion® Essential Studio®
Editions & Modules
Kendo UI with Priority Support
$999
per developer, royalty-free
DevCraft UI
$1,299
per developer, royalty-free
DevCraft Complete
$1,499
per developer, royalty-free
DevCraft Ultimate
$2,199
per developer, royalty-free
Team License - Up to 5 developers
$395
per month
Team License - Up to 10 developers
$695
per month
More than a team of 10*
Customized Quote
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Progress Kendo UI
Syncfusion® Essential Studio®
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
o A subscription license that covers a team of up to 5 members is available for $395 per month. Transferable annual license with unlimited deployment. Includes a license management portal.
o A subscription license that covers a team of up to 10 members is available for $695 per month. Transferable annual license with unlimited deployment. Includes a license management portal.
o For teams of more than 10, the Syncfusion sales team can prepare a custom quote.
o Syncfusion offers subscription licenses that are suited to every organization's structure and needs. In addition to the Team Licenses described above, Project, Division, and Global subscription licenses are also available.
Last updated: January 28, 2025
Kendo UI works well if developing web UI applications which have simple layout designs. - Good A scenario where there are a lot of Kendo widgets on a single UI page, and each has a complex initialization. - Not so good
The datagrid is probably their most popular control I would think. It is so flexible and configurable. Most of mine are plain views in ASP.NET Core, but I have a whole bunch that are dynamically created at runtime in my controller. That is so powerful.
Kendo Grid for presenting a timeline of research grants as they are being approved. Our users love the ability to export the data to various mime formats.
Kendo Scheduler for presenting the upcoming calendar events in the available conference rooms in a building. This is used together with a 3rd party vendor API for appointment booking.
Kendo Treeview is used to present a hierarchy of topics that our users can navigate through easily.
Kendo UI is always moving forward and staying current with latest development trends. While that is beneficial, that can cause some issues when supporting customers (particularly government) that don't move their IT infrastructure along nearly as fast. A prime example is web font icons. Great and easy to use, but where Kendo UI utilizes web font icons as the sole means of displaying an icon, not all organizations (again, especially government) allow the use of these. There have been times where Kendo UI became unusable and we had to downgrade to a version a few years old. Makes continued payment for licenses sometimes feel wasted as we may not be able to always use the new releases
Kendo UI has a wonderful feedback system and they do indeed listen to the community. However, there do seem to be some instances where there is large support for a new feature/component and it never gets addressed. It is easy to understand that not all ideas are easy or even prudent to implement, but would be nice to see a better follow-up on ideas with a current status
Refreshing Kendo UI grids is simple, yet the standard API method causes the grid to return to the default state. We have many use cases where we would love to update the grid data but need current grid state (such as expanded detail rows, sorts, filters, etc) preserved after the grid is updated so that users do not have to perform grid actions again to return to the desired state.
Most complex activities (beyond the out of the box examples) require a very extensive knowledge of javascript. This is not really a short coming of the product but rather a reality for the user who is trying to fully utilize the capabilities of the software.
Since we are using Kendo on a legacy product, there is likely a time when we will no longer support it. We are evaluating Kendo for our future product, in which case we may continue to use Kendo for an extended period of time.
It takes effort to include a new component library into existing software, especially in our case where we have 5 large applications that are written and maintained by about 100 developers. So changing such a core thing comes with a lot of effort. The other reason we will very likely renew our use of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition is that it works really well and has helped us to speed up the development process.
My initial score would be 10, but I am aware of the high price for its implementation. Therefore, I would recommend it only in large projects where a large profit margin can be obtained. But in general, I recommend it. I am currently using it without problems.
I would rate Syncfusion® Essential Studio® a 10 out of 10 for overall usability. The components are intuitive to implement, with clear APIs and consistent design patterns across the suite. This makes it easy for developers to get started quickly and reduces the learning curve even when working with new controls. In addition, the documentation and sample projects provide practical guidance that helps accelerate development. The built-in customization options also allow us to adapt the components to fit our branding and business requirements without excessive effort. Overall, the usability is one of the key reasons why Syncfusion has become an essential part of our development toolset.
Overall, we are satisfied with the support offered by the Progress Kendo UI team. We had raised few helpline incidents in the past and they have been resolved timely by the team. Also, we were satisfied with the level of information and support provided by the team.
Although I have decades of software development experience, I had never created a website from scratch before, and my html and css skills are not particularly strong. Between documentation and incredible dedication from the support team they helped me overcome all of my challenges. It's amazing that they typically create sample code for most of the issues that I submitted. On rare occasions where I uncovered a defect they kept me informed as to its status, and typically resolved it in a short-term release, and/or gave me a reasonable workaround. They hopped on zoom calls with me on multiple occasions when necessary.
I think the main thing is to get into a Kendo mindset. Components that I've used in the past had a much different mindset and I think it got in my way. Sometimes I would use something different if I felt that the Kendo component was being too obstinate. I would go back later and replace that with the Kendo component when I had time to work with it further.
I did not experience the other product that has such an integrated and user-friendly feature. It works more like an everyday query with the UI element in a totally aesthetic and attractive view. With the Kendo library, we don't need to develop every UI component from the beginning. It was one of the faster development of applications.
Firstly, there is a free version for small businesses and it allows you to jump start without risk. I found one of the other products a bit short in the number of out-of-the-box supported events handlers for each control and, although you can manually add them, I feel more comfortable to just have them ready. After using the free version I just felt in love with Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition controls and decided to stay with them; they have all I need and more. The usage of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition controls is straightforward and intuitive. Support is world-class even for the free version; you get answers in 24 hours at most. Also, the support team is ready to remotely connect to your project in case it is needed; we have had one situation like this, and the issue was solved.
Positive impact is that it helps development team to focus on business logic rather than developing UI control and that resulted in good productivity savings. productivity saving is significant (like 30% of product development cost).
First of all, I think the best positive impact is the reduce of time development. I do not know exactly how much time, but certainly, using the framework we save a lot of effort and time.
About negative impact, sometimes using the controls of the framewrok have a signifcant impact in the execution time and page load.
And of course, the use of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition has a significant impact of the learning of javascript and JQUERY.
