Background

The library was originally called Millstone Library. The first version was used in a large production application that IT Mill designed and implemented for an international pharmaceutical company. IT Mill made the application already in the year 2001 and it is still in use. Since then, the company has produced dozens of large business applications with the library and it has proven its ability to solve hard problems easily.

The next generation of the library, IT Mill Toolkit Release 4, was released in 2006. It introduced an entirely new AJAX-based presentation engine. This allowed the development of AJAX applications without the need to worry about communications between the client and the server.

IT Mill Toolkit 5 introduced many significant improvements both in the server-side API and in the functionality. Rewriting the Client-Side Engine with GWT allowed the use of Java both on the client and the server-side. The transition from JavaScript to GWT made the development and integration of custom components and customization of existing components much easier than before, and it also allows easy integration of existing GWT components. The adoption of GWT on the client-side did not, by itself, cause any changes in the server-side API, because GWT is a browser technology that is hidden well behind the API. Also theming was completely revised in IT Mill Toolkit 5.

The Release 5 was published under the Apache License 2, an unrestrictive open source license, to create faster expansion of the user base and to make the formation of a developer community possible.

With Vaadin 6, the number of developers using the framework exploded. Together with the release, the Vaadin Plugin for Eclipse was released, helping the creation of Vaadin projects. The introduction of Vaadin Directory in early 2010 gave it a further boost, as the number of available components multiplied almost overnight. Many of the originally experimental components have since then matured and are now used by thousands of developers. In 2013, we are seeing tremendous growth in the ecosystem around Vaadin. The size of the user community, at least if measured by forum activity, has already gone past the competing server-side frameworks and even GWT.

Vaadin 7 was a major revision that changed the Vaadin API much more than Vaadin 6 did. It is certainly more web-oriented than Vaadin 6 was. We are doing everything we can to help Vaadin rise high in the web universe. Some of this work is easy and almost routine - fixing bugs and implementing features. But going higher also requires standing firmer. That was one of the aims of Vaadin 7 - redesigning the product so that the new architecture enables Vaadin to reach over many long-standing challenges. Many of the changes required breaking API compatibility with Vaadin 6, especially in the client-side, but they are made with a strong desire to avoid carrying unnecessary legacy burden far into the future.