Ajax Framework

AJAX framework is a cross-browser framework that allows developers to develop dynamic web pages(that use AJAX) quickly.
Web pages developed using an AJAX framework can call web services and server pages through JavaScript without having to submit the current page. Recent Web-applications tend to use these for providing more interactivity and improving their overall functionality.

While there are hundreds of Ajax frameworks available, there currently only about 20 heavily used or heavily written about frameworks that fall into 3 categories. While all simplify the creation of Javascript-based dynamic based web applications, most are object-oriented packages that are written in Javascript itself. However, several others are written in the server side scripting language PHP, others are written in Java, and a few exist for ASP.net and ColdFusion.

Categories of AJAX frameworks

(X)HTML/CSS Supplement Frameworks

Classic examples of this type of framework are Prototype and JQuery. As is suggested by JQueries tagline "The Write Less, Do More Javascript Library", these frameworks attempt to add tools to a designers resource kit to simplify and standarize the javascript required to perform AJAX type actions.

Pure AJAX Actions

These libraries generally include a call-back system that attempts to simplify the creation and execution of HTTPXMLRequest objects and to simply the handling of HTTPXMLResponse objects. Another way of putting this is that they usually attempt to create and "Event Handling" system that will be allow code creation that is cross-platform, reliable, and easily readable to any developer familiar with the framework. These frameworks will also include code to assist in CSS and DOM manipulation, as well as adding some visual effects, page redrawing without page refreshes. The obvious advantage to these

Server-End Technology Adapter Kits

Some of the most popular and interesting Ajax frameworks are:

Framework Name	Platform Type	What makes it interesting
ExtJS	Javascript	Small codebase, powerful, in use by many clients
Prototype/Script.aculo.us	Javascript	Completely free, high adoption among many large client, Prototype tends to handle data exchange while Script.aculo.us handle GUI effects. Allows uses of the smaller Prototype only codebase if you don't need fancy visual effect.