Is Mono for ASP.NET mature enough for real applications?

Have you heard of real ASP.NET applications that use Mono? What problems do they face? Would you advice this technology to build a server-side for a RIA?

We plan to build ASP.NET Web Service.开发者_如何学JAVA There is a team of .NET developers and we want to reuse our skills so we have to stick to ASP.NET. But it would be undesirable to use Windows servers.

Would you recommend to use Linux + Apache with Mono or Windows + IIS with .NET?

Thanks in advance!

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Have you heard of real ASP.NET applications that use Mono?

There are a couple of them and probably the best known is MMO orionsbelt which uses mono with Nginx webserver as far as I know. However I would say that most of the ASP.NET mono based applications are running internally in companies, so there are not many "wild" examples which I can point to.

What problems do they face?

Problem can be for example choosing the technology which mono doesn't support, so you have to look for the alternative. Also availability of cutting edge fresh features after new MS.NET version release can be postponed in mono. My experience with mono compared to MS.NET is that I sometimes spend more time with deployment/testing, but there wasn't a problem so far which will cause me to stop using mono (this is however subjective and it depends on enthusiasm and endurance).

Would you advice this technology to build a server-side for a RIA?

Yes, I would and not only for RIA. You can use mono to build pretty much everything within reason.

Would you recommend to use Linux + Apache with Mono or Windows + IIS with .NET?

It depends on certain .NET technologies which you plan/have to use in your application. For example if you need entity framework or similar stuff which mono doesn't implement, then you have to choose Windows (in case when you have to use it). This however doesn't mean that you can't build the same stuff on Linux/Apache/Mono which you can on Windows/IIS/MS.NET. It's just the question of choosing the alternative technology that works with mono.

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Yes, mono is mature enough, but it depends on your use case.

Are you looking to use third-party .NET code (such as a CMS, or a framework)? If so, does it support Mono? We've found most compatibility issues when trying out third-party code. That said, much of the .NET code you'll find out there works fine.

If you're developing your code in-house, then you don't have that concern, but make a list of the .NET APIs and/or features that you want to use, and check (by looking at the mono site and/or building test code) that the APIs and features are present in a recent, stable version of mono.