Item: Progress Telerik
Rating: 10
Author: Doug Thompson

Overall Satisfaction with Progress Telerik UI

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Started using the Telerik rad ajax controls, because of the rapid app development impact. Whilst you could write all the controls by hand, this offered consistency and product support, unlike https://material-ui.com/ components that are partially documented and not fully tested. So if you are focused on delivering features then [Progress] TelerikUI is great, but it looks like Telerik /Office 365 controls, so very familiar to the user. If you want to be unique then less good. Of late I used it to generate many internal line of business applications, replacing Excel Spreadsheets and associated graphics. It's very speedy in doing that.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Support
Testing
Demos and examples
Framework support

Cons

Pricing

Return on Investment

Rapid development with limited resources - ROI
However, you have to pay for it and you have your dev team in the office anyway, they might as well code from scratch, so for some free always wins, especially if you have many developers

Alternatives Considered

Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition

Telerik Support (pre-progress) is awesome, way better than Infragistics or Syncfusion.
Syncfusion is a little cheaper.
They all have Grid components (like Excel) then there are a few edge cases of having different controls to another to show off. Once you know what UI tech you are going to use e.g. Blazor/UWP/React/JQuery then you need to check if the feature set is in the product list and is it fast enough for your needs.

Support Rating

Telerik UI support is what you are paying for.
If something does not work you ask them for an example of how to solve your use case.
The SEO on their sites is awesome and so well bedded into Google.
The videos are good, [they're] not used much but their examples and DoJo examples make all the difference.

Usability

The UX of their UI is very well thought out, the micro-interactions are intuitive - thus great for your end user as less training is needed.
Using the software, there [are] loads to get you going, you can download their whole demo site and see how each demo works. There is more now on github to get you started, also much on an awesome CDN that's well bedded in so your app is speedy and up to date.

Key Insights

Do you think Progress Telerik delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Progress Telerik's feature set?

Yes

Did Progress Telerik live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Progress Telerik go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Progress Telerik again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Postman, Visual Studio IDE, Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Likelihood to Recommend

The key feature is Rapid Application Development with a focus on Internal Line of Business applications - Business digitization. Assume your company has less than 5 developers and you are either fire-fighting or quickly solving problems, where the solutions have to work on all browsers, meet all standards because you don't have the resources to do it. You are paying for their technical support, their extensive testing as you don't have the time, if you want it to follow conventions e.g. BootStrap or Material Design out of the box, then that is just a selection.
Less good at creating a UI that is very different [from] everybody else, e.g. must not look like BootStrap or Material or AppleUI.

Using Progress Telerik UI

Users and Roles

Support Headcount Required

Evaluating Progress Telerik UI and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - Homegrown UI, every UX was different and no time to test.

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation
Prior Experience with the Product

Not the cheapest product out there, and now that Progress bought Telerik the price will be an issue.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

More POC testing, and feature/price comparisons.
In the past, you could buy just the single controls from Telerik that you used, e.g. the Grid.
If your project just uses a grid then you could write your own, test it, do all the compliance work.
But when a breaking change comes out with a new update to Windows, to MS Internet Explorer/Edge or Chrome -[do you] have the resources to fix it or has Telerik done it already?
How much is that time worth to you?
If you are working in the health sector and the hospital is using really old PCs and have low budgets, how are you going to support all the different browsers, or do you want somebody else to do that for you?

Progress Telerik UI Implementation

Implementation Rating

The implementation went smoothly. However, many of the charting UI has been replaced with PowerBI.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Yes

Progress Telerik UI Support

Progress Telerik Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

Telerik support is premium support. When you buy it you get the first year with it, it makes all the difference then after that it's just a case of renewals, and you get the latest upgrades as well. If you want confidence, then get support.

Bug Resolution

Yes - Yes, and I get a hotfix or a workaround, it's hard to find bugs these days.

Exceptional Examples of Progress Telerik Support

Sometimes their support extends into chargeable application design, as long as you don't take the micky that's part of the support. This is a grey area, e.g. what [is] the best UI control to use in a given use case. They now offer Technical/Solutions consultancy service which is long overdue but is quite obvious having met many of their developers at trade shows (NDC/DevWeek etc).

Using Progress Telerik UI

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None