Apache Cocoon

Apache Cocoon is a Spring-based (since version 2.2 of Cocoon) framework built around the concepts of separation of concerns and component-based development.

Cocoon implements these concepts around the notion of component pipelines, each component on the pipeline specializing on a particular operation. This makes it possible to use a Lego(tm)-like approach in building web solutions, hooking together components into pipelines, often without any required programming.

Cocoon used as web framework is "web glue for your web application development needs". It is a glue that keeps concerns separate and allows parallel evolution of all aspects of a web application, improving development pace and reducing the chance of conflicts. In particular it makes it easy to support multiple output formats, offers continuation based web controller implementations and comes with a JSR-168 compatible Portal implementation.

Cocoon blocks A block is the unit of modularization in Cocoon (in comparison: Eclipse uses the term plugins, OSGi bundles). Everything that goes beyond what Cocoon provides in its core modules (Spring integration, sitemap and pipeline implementation) is provided as block. Custom Cocoon applications are also developed as blocks. A block can provide the following features:

• general servlet services (any servlet can be managed by the Cocoon servlet-service framework),
• special services that provide pipelines as services,
• component services (Spring beans, Avalon services/components),
• a container for classes and resources.

A block is packaged as a Java archive (jar) following certain conventions concerning the directory structure.

General features

• Apache Cocoon is a Spring-based (since version 2.2) framework built around the concepts of separation of concerns and component-based development, ensuring that people can interact and collaborate on a project without stepping on each other toes.
• Cocoon implements these concepts around the notion of component pipelines, each component on the pipeline specializing in a particular operation (usual pipeline uses a Generator, Transformers and a Serializer). This makes it possible to use a Lego(tm)-like approach in building web solutions, hooking together components into pipelines without requiring programming.
• Advanced Control Flow: continuation-based page flow hides the complexity of request/response processing and is cleanly separated from the view and data components.
• Cocoon is open source software (based on the Apache License 2.0).
• Cocoon does not duplicate efforts but tightly integrates many technologies.
• Cocoon is in use at many live sites and on many company networks.
• Cocoon has a strong community, with many active developers and more than plenty of active committers!
• There is free support from the thousands of people on our mailing lists and commercial support is available from various companies and consultants.