Cuba Platform (with Cuba Studio) is extremely easy to use. I found the learning curve to get off the ground with a basic CRUD application pretty tame. I am not a professional developer but offer LOB applications as a value add for clients. Cuba Studio generates and applies RDBMS scripts automatically. This includes changes after the application is deployed in production. There are several deployment options from hot deploy, cloud, to creating a WAR that can be dropped into a Tomcat server. (There are likely more I am not aware of) Cuba Studio can generate and keep updated UI screens as you are developing the app and changing entities. After that, screens can be easily customized in a WYSIWYG interface. Which a ton of options for look, feel, and customization. It is possible to make a simple CRUD application without touching a line of java code, but it you need to, Cuba Studio integrates with Eclipse and intelliJ via plugin. There is a robust security subsystem for managing users. The community forum and chat are a fantastic resource, especially if you are just getting started with the platform. Questions are answered by fellow forum member or the actual development team in less than a day (often faster) I have found a few minor bugs and they all have been patched within a matter of hours (and put into the next maintenance release). Last but not least, I love the speed of development. New features are released it seems almost every month. More importantly bug fixes are pushed out every couple of weeks.

I have done a lot of Java-based web development. I had migrated to a bunch of best of breed Java solutions like Vaadin, Intellij IDEA , Spring and Flyway/Liquibase. However, I kept getting bogged down by the enormous complexity, especially when it came to evolving the data model and Spring security. It is rare to come across a new product that kicks things up to the next level but I have found the Cuba platform to be one such instance. It is a pure-Java, fully integrated solution that really enables rapid development of web applications (it also supports creating desktop applications but I have not done much with this). They integrate all the same best of breed solutions I was using -- Vaadin, Intellij, Spring and a very good data model development and migration solution. One difference was that I was previously using Maven and they rely on Gradle. The solutions are integrated into an elegantly designed comprehensive framework. This is not a drag and drop application builder (although they have some nice drag and drop functionality). You need to have some Java and Spring expertise. Some database knowledge is a plus. The platform forces you to work in a tightly constrained manner which enables automation. Once you get into the swing of things you are able quickly to develop fully featured applications that are likely to have fewer errors. They are very nicely integrated with my editor of choice, Intellij IDEA, and that is where you continue to write most of your Java code. Their Cuba Studio tool however provides nice functionality that adds a lot of additional value.

Pros: Fast development Generate model function Forum Db connections