We chose it because we need a framework to build rich internet applications especially to build business applications. We also looked for a tool that was very well established in the market with the first version released more than 10 years ago. We also didn't want to change the framework periodically.
Pros
Great components
One single library
Very good support
Easy version update
Cons
More default themes
Biggest community
Likelihood to Recommend
It's great to develop business applications. Previously, we tried different technologies but we find it the most suitable for us. We also deploy a generic backend so we don't need to install anything new to implement new applications. This helps us to develop very fast and with very low effort.
Sencha is currently being used by pretty much my whole department. Some basic feature that attracted the org to adopt sencha were:
<ul><li>It's a complete solution - no more figuring out solutions from 10 different places</li><li>They have a support model in place in case one hits road blocks</li><li>It's a future proof technology as it's based on html5 and javascript</li><li>It would be easy to build on mobile platforms as it's already embedded into the framework</li></ul>
Pros
It's a complete solution that has a vast array of pre built components, charts and a data-grid based solution.
Security comes out of the box.
It's mobile and tablet ready.
It has a lot of support from the community so solutions are easily available
You can add your own flavor via theme customizations and built in component extension.
Cons
Being a huge framework with all these components the learning curve is huge as compared to other html5 and javascript frameworks out there today.
It's hard to plugin a custom pure javascript component, you need to stick to components that are part of sdk.
Changing some implementation of a component already defined is not straightforward, it needs a lot of understanding.
It takes a fair amount of time to even get the basic shell of the application up and running if you are starting from scratch.
It's very expensive from a licensing cost point of view.
Likelihood to Recommend
Sencha is suited for:
<ul><li>Enterprise applications that are really huge</li><li>Development happens on huge teams, on-shore an offshore model, one can divide and conquer by splitting in modules easily</li><li>Budget is not a constraint</li></ul>
It's not uited for:
<ul><li>Small budget applications</li><li>Not too many components are needed</li><li>Static or less dynamic content based websites</li><li>Turnaround time is shorter and developers have to spin something around in a short duration of time</li></ul>