| Play Framework | |
| Developer: | Community |
| Programming Language: | Scala |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Web application framework |
| License: | Apache License 2.0 |
Play Framework is an open-source web application framework which follows the model–view–controller (MVC) architectural pattern. It is written in Scala and usable from other programming languages that are compiled to JVM bytecode, e.g. Java. It aims to optimize developer productivity by using convention over configuration, hot code reloading and display of errors in the browser.[1]
Support for the Scala programming language has been available since version 1.1 of the framework.[2] In version 2.0, the framework core was rewritten in Scala. Build and deployment was migrated to SBT, and templates use Scala[3] instead of Apache Groovy.
Play was created by software developer Guillaume Bort, while working at Zengularity SA (formerly Zenexity).[4] Although the early releases are no longer available online, there is evidence of Play existing as far back as May 2007.[5] In 2007, pre-release versions of the project were available to download from Zenexity's website.[6]
| Version | Date | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The first published code for 1.0 appeared on Launchpad.[7] This was followed by a full 1.0 release in October 2009.[8] | |||
| Released after a move from Launchpad to GitHub. It included a migration from Apache MINA to JBoss Netty, Scala support, native GlassFish container, an asynchronous web services library, OAuth support, HTTPS support and other features.[9] | |||
| It included dependency management with Apache Ivy, support for WebSocket, integrated database migration (reversion was not implemented[10]), a switch to the H2 database as the default development database and other features.[11] | |||
| libraries upgraded (a.o. netty, hibernate, etc.), added multiple databases support and included customisable template name resolving. | |||
| Compatible to Java 7 and removed support for Java 6. Added ability to define enabled ssl protocols. | |||
| Upgraded to Hibernate 5.x. Dropped support for java version prior to 1.8. | |||
| Compatible to Java 14, libraries upgraded | |||
| Compatible to Java 17, libraries upgraded, dropped support for java version prior to 11, Play scripts upgrade to Python 3 | |||
| Sadek Drobi joined Guillaume Bort late 2011 to create Play 2.0[12] in conjunction with Typesafe Stack 2.0.[13] | |||
| Upgraded to Scala 2.10 and introduced, among other new features, modularization, a new JSON API, filters and RequireJS support.[14] | |||
Upgraded support for SBT to 0.13, better support for buffering, built in support for gzip and new stage and dist tasks with support for native packaging on several platforms such as OS X (DMG), Linux (RPM, DEB), and Windows (MSI) as well as zip files. | |||
| Introducing the Activator command, better tooling for static assets, support for Java 8 and Scala 2.11, better performance, Web Service enhancement and support to integrate Actors and Web Sockets. | |||
| With Dependency injection out of the box, the possibility to embed Play inside other applications, improved Java 8 support, HikariCP as the default connection pool and better testing APIs. | |||
Switched from Iteratees to Akka Streams for all asynchronous IO and streaming, replaced custom functional types with Java 8 types (such as CompletionStage and Optional), introduced equivalent Java APIs for features that previously only existing in the Scala API, such as implementing filters and custom body parsers and with a 20% performance increase. | |||
| Using Akka HTTP as the default server backend, experimental HTTP/2 support, Scala 2.12 support, no more global state under the hood, JSON Web Token format for cookies, improved security and configuration improvements. | |||
| Scala 2.13 support, support for Caffeine as underlying cache implementation, updated HikariCP and Guice versions, improved form validation and file uploading functions.[15] | |||
| Java 11 support, Updated Akka, Jackson, support pre-seek sources for range results[16] | |||
| [17] | Scala 3, Java 17, and Java 21 support.[18] | ||
| [19] | Because Akka is no longer open source, Play switched from Akka to Apache Pekko.[20] | ||
Play is heavily inspired by ASP.NET MVC, Ruby on Rails and Django and is similar to this family of frameworks. Play web applications can be written in Scala or Java, in an environment that may be less Java Enterprise Edition-centric. Play uses no Java EE constraints. This can make Play simpler to develop compared to other Java-centric platforms.[21]
Although Play 1.x could also be packaged as WAR files to be distributed to standard Java EE application servers,[22] Play 2.x applications are now designed to be run using the built-in Akka HTTP or Netty web servers exclusively.
Play provides integration with test frameworks for unit testing and functional testing for both Scala and Java applications. For Scala, integrations with Scalatest and Specs2 are provided out-of-the-box and, for Java, there is integration with JUnit 4. For both languages, there is also integration with Selenium (software). SBT is used to run the tests and also to generate reports. It is also possible to use code coverage tools by using sbt plugins such as scoverage or jacoco4sbt.
In August 2011, Heroku announced native support for Play applications on its cloud computing platform.[24] This followed module-based support for Play 1.0 on Google App Engine, and documented support on Amazon Web Services.[25]
, the Play Framework was the most popular Scala project on GitHub.[26]
In July 2015, Play was the 3rd most popular Scala library in GitHub, based on 64,562 Libraries. 21.3% of the top Scala projects used Play as their framework of choice.[27]
Corporate users of the Play Framework have included Coursera, HuffPost, Hootsuite, Janrain, LinkedIn, and Connectifier.[28]