When comparing AIDA/web vs Spark, the Slant community recommends Spark for most people. In the question“What are the best backend web frameworks?” Spark is ranked 41st while AIDA/web is ranked 47th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Conceptually simple, yet complete
Most frameworks seem to tend towards conceptually simple, but also stripped down (such as Python's Flask), or go the other way and be very fully featured, yet complex. AIDA/web, however, manages to give a programmer a lot of expressive power, while remaining conceptually simple -- an afternoon will get you building websites, and you'll feel comfortable with AIDA/web in just a week or so.
Pro Smalltalk
Program your web app in Smalltalk, an enjoyable and easy language to use. Smalltalk was the language to inspire modern Object-Oriented programming and pioneered many of the programming concepts used today, such as MVC.
Pro Custom quick swipe features
Pro Free
Pro Robust customization options
Pro Syncs across devices
Pro Unified inbox
Pro Free snooze options
Cons
Con Relatively inactive
At the time of this writing, AIDA/web is 26 years old (first created in 1996). While maintaining pace with modern technologies (REST, Javascript, etc.), the community is small. You might find it difficult to find timely help, find resources and tutorials, etc.
Con Horrible privacy policy
- Sends statistical data to several services known for bad privacy policies (Google, Facebook), also there's no way to opt out.
- Automatically creates an acount with the first address entered and subscribes you to their newsletter.
- Stores credentials for your email accounts on their servers.
- Stores your emails on their servers to push them to your devices.
- Server infrastructure seems to be located in the US.
Con Doesn't support many services
Many services such as Spam filters, Pocket, and other apps are not supported.
Con Doesn't show the counts of emails next to the folders
- On the Mac platform will show +999 for the folder that contains more than 1000 emails.
- On the iPhone, the platform will not show the counts next to the folder unless they are new emails.