Who am I?
- Joined ESRI in 2012
- Came from a web design/startup background
- ArcGIS was something people asked me how to print from in college
- I didn't know what spatial references, projects, mercator or renderers were
Leaflet?
- Open Source Mapping API
- Used by OSM, Mapbox, Data.gov
- Small, Extensible API
Brief History of Esri Leaflet
- I loved the simplicity of Leaflet to consuming ArcGIS Online services
- Started very simple, Feature Services, Basemaps, Dynamic Map Services
- Grown in capabilities, contributors and stability.
- Most popular Esri Open Source project.
Smackdown!
Esri Leaflet vs JS API
Who Wins?
No One
Good developers choose the right tools for the project
Esri Leaflet
- Supports a wide variety of ArcGIS Services
- Clean Simple API
- Growing Fast
- Open Source
Esri Leaflet
- Doesn't support non-mercator tiles
- No Renderer support
- No Webmap support
JS API
- Offically maintained and supported by a large team
- Supports ALL the functionality of ArcGIS
- Comes with lots of UI components
- Lots of helper components from Dojo
- Very opinionated
Choose Esri Leaflet if you...
- are integrating into existing apps
- are already using Leaflet
- want a simpler focused toolset
- want to leverage non-ArcGIS Services or data
- want to leverage Leaflet Plugins
- easier integration w/ frameworks and build systems
Choose the JS API if you...
- need deep integration with ArcGIS
- want to support everything (renderers, web maps…)
- work in non-web-mercator/wgs 84 projections
- love Dojo
