Using Vaadin outside a J2EE container

Question

I looked at many examples of Vaadin and all of them use Vaadin servlet. Is it possible to use Vaadin framework outside a servlet container? If yes, how to achieve that? A sample code would be most welcome.

Answer 1

Web Components

In recent years, the Vaadin company has been producing versions of their widgets that can run outside of their server-side Java framework. They are taking advantage of advancements being made in Web Components and the Google Polymer project.

The company has launched their Vaadin Elements program.

Vaadin Elements is a set of custom HTML elements tailored for business applications. It extends the Google Polymer library with elements like data grid, charts and combo box so you can build the app your business needs. The elements are actively maintained and tested to ensure compatibility with the latest Polymer releases.

For example, their excellent rows-and-columns Vaadin Grid component is available in three editions:

• Vaadin Framework
  The Vaadin server-side Java framework based on Java Servlet technology.
• Vaadin GWT Polymer Elements
  For Google Web Toolkit developers.
• Vaadin Elements
  For JavaScript developers.

Be forewarned: the Vaadin team is pushing the envelope in these new web technologies. But they are very excited by their successes and eagerly invite people to try out the new editions of their products.

See the Vaadin company blog for announcements of their success with various components in this effort.

• Just yesterday (2016-04) they described a Date Picker widget and a file-uploader widget, both being available as betas in their Vaadin Elements collection.
• The week before that they described a beta of a ComboBox widget for Polymer.
• The week before that was an entry about their Vaadin Charts 3.0 product being finalized and shipping, both for the Vaadin Framework (server-side, Java) as well as for client-side developers using Polymer, AngularJS, React, or other HTML5 library.

For a very technical discussion, see the video and slides from a meeting at the Seattle Java Users Group (SeaJUG) in 2016-03 in a presentation by Vaadin staffer, Marcus Hellberg.

Answer 2

Vaadin needs a Servlet Environment. Notice however that the Servlet Specification is just a tiny (but essential) part of Java EE. A Servlet Container is typically very light-weight. So use Undertow, Jetty, Tomcat or any other Servlet Container. Note that these products are all embeddable, ideal for micro services.