On a high level, web frameworks provide means through which applications developers can develop software based on the model view controller (mvc) architecture. This is an architecture that dictates the separation of models or business entities from controllers that provide a link between the model and the view that is used in the display of content to the user. MVC can be achieved by push (where the controllers send content to the view for display) or pull (where the view can use multiple controllers to obtain data for display). On the view layer, the frameworks provide templating languages that allow for the development of HTML intermingled with data islands that are later filled with actual data from the controller.

Below is a description of some major frameworks in a variety of languages that are widely used in developing applications for the web in the current day and age:

• Mach-II For Coldfusion: This is the first object oriented framework for coldfusion that was designed to help developers create and maintain large-scale applications. The framework is based on the MVC architecture with a great focus on developing maintainable systems. Touted in its capabilities, Mach-II boasts in providing the low level system to system communication features that allow it to consume remote services easily. Besides that the following features are also available:
  • Inclusion of XML in the content
  • Bindable placeholder support to allow for tight coupling of data to the view
  • Caching on the controller level
  • URL management features
• ASP.NET: Besides the development of web applications, ASP.NET, Microsoft’s development platforms can be used to develop other native applications that run on the .NET runtime. However for the web, ASP.NET allows the usage of C# of VB.NET, the two most popular languages on the platform. ASP.NET webforms with code behind model based applications are developed using the famous Visual Studio IDE from Microsoft. Like other MVC frameworks, ASP.NET also provides for the separation of the models from the views and also controllers. Web applications built on ASP.NET are binaries that can be deployed to the web server. The web servers that run applications based on this platform have a dependency on the .NET runtime (on Windows) or the MONO runtime on Linux.
• Apache STRUTS: This is a free MVC framework for building java web applications. These framework provides three basic components:
  • A "request" handler provided by the application developer that is mapped to a standard URI.
  • A "response" handler that transfers control to another resource which completes the response.
  • A tag library that helps developers create interactive form-based applications with server pages.

• Ruby On Rails: Rails is a full-stack framework for developing database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Control pattern. From the Ajax in the view, to the request and response in the controller, to the domain model wrapping the database, Rails gives you a pure-Ruby development environment. Ruby on Rails also referred to RoR changes the view and capabilities that web application frameworks offer. RoR is based on the mantra of Convention over configuration, a move away from traditional development frameworks like Struts that had a slew of configuration files.
• Adobe Flex: Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross platform, rich Internet applications based on the proprietary Adobe Flash platform. The Flex framework includes the Flex Builder IDE currently Flex 3 a proprietary IDE based on the Eclipse. The frameworks intent is to ease the development of applications based on the Flash Runtine that is also developed at Adobe. Most developers encounter with flash are fended off by the management of timeline that Flash gurus are comfortable with. This framework bridges the gap between the flash designers and those wishing to develop rich flash web applications for the web.
• CakePHP: This is a PHP based framework that borrows its concepts from the RoR framework. It should be pointed out that there are hundreds of frameworks that follow the constructs of RoR whose philosophy is to focus on convention over configuration. CakePHP provides the following features:
  • Compatibility with PHP4 and PHP5
  • Integrated Create Read Update Delete (CRUD) for database and simplified querying
  • Request dispatcher with custom URLs
  • Templating (PHP syntax with helper methods)
  • Website directory independent
  • Built-in validation
  • Access control lists (ACL)
  • Data sanitization
  • Security, session, and request handling components
  • View caching

All these frameworks have support for the popular AJAX development methodology. AJAX allows for creation of rich interactive web application.