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Adobe AIR vs. Microsoft Silverlight

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe AIR
Score 6.0 out of 10
N/A
N/AN/A
Microsoft Silverlight
Score 3.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Silverlight is a development tool.N/A
Pricing
Adobe AIRMicrosoft Silverlight
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AIRMicrosoft Silverlight
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AIRMicrosoft Silverlight
Considered Both Products
Adobe AIR
Chose Adobe AIR
Originally, Adobe AIR was the only game in town, and its blend of flexibility in platforms it could publish to (PC, Mac, iOS, Android), ease of use, and familiarity made it the clear choice. Now Adobe no longer supports it, and we’ve found the transition to Harmon unworkable …
MR
Marilyn Rodriguez
Owner/Art Director
Chose Adobe AIR
We already use all the other Adobe products so it was an easy choice to use AIR for our programming type of programs. As we used it more, we found that it was very simple to learn/the learning curve was not very steep at all. We honestly didn't look at any other options, …
JM
John Mihaila
Software Manager
Chose Adobe AIR
Adobe AIR does not support Windows phones but works well on both Android and Apple iOS. It enables developers to build and deploy good quality applications to mobile platforms for a majority of mobile users and allows developers to build working prototypes in a relatively …
YI
Yosef Ing
Director of Social Media
Chose Adobe AIR
There are definitely other platforms out there that are awesome but Adobe AIR is just what our other developers were used to using but we do have some success.
Chris Cookson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Chris Cookson
Junior Animator
Chose Adobe AIR
Generally stacks up fairly negatively, program definitely has its place, I appreciate what it can allow but now most desktop apps are fine enough as browser based experiences or for personal use mobile is the way to go. Air isn't the best environment for that.
William Alvarez | TrustRadius Reviewer
William Alvarez
Inside Sales Support Associate
Chose Adobe AIR
Appcelerator is open source and is very good, but my company wanted something more business-oriented and with more formal support.
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Adobe AIR
Originally, Adobe Air was a great choice for us to build mobile titles from prior web titles when compared to tools such as native iOS with cocos2d. We were able to get games stood up much faster than our competition and out to market to make money. That said, as Unity improved …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Adobe AIR
Adobe AIR is more friendly to a serious programmer because it supports core programming methodology in a way that Unity does not. Both AIR and Unity have a hidden underlying layer of event management code that can add performance costs. However, Unity is more friendly to a …
Thomas Gorence | TrustRadius Reviewer
Thomas Gorence
Software Developer
Chose Adobe AIR
Since Adobe AIR can be used with the Flash IDE, there are not many other solutions with such a robust toolset. The ability to import layered photoshop files directly onto the stage, and then ability to animate and create movieclips within that IDE is an extremely valuable …
Microsoft Silverlight
Kiel Knisely | TrustRadius Reviewer
Kiel Knisely
Software Engineer
Chose Microsoft Silverlight
We picked silverlight 10 years ago because html 5 wasn't feature rich yet. We thought Microsoft was going to support for longer. Unfortunately html 5 became feature rich and silverlight got deprecated. At the time it provided features a normal browser could not
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight allows more adaptability and it integrates well with our products across the company. Adobe Flash crashes or doesn't work with our shipping campus.
Chose Microsoft Silverlight
There's no need to connect asp.net with JavaScript to get what they both can give us. Without Silverlight we always needed to merge sync and async technologies in order to achieve a nice and responsive GUI in web applications. We can only hope that Microsoft will go back to …
Best Alternatives
Adobe AIRMicrosoft Silverlight
Small Businesses
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe AIRMicrosoft Silverlight
Likelihood to Recommend
5.7
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AIRMicrosoft Silverlight
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe AIR is well-suited for a developer who is already familiar with Flash and AS3. It is well-suited for 2D app development using Starling or another third-party graphics library. However, to be used appropriately and avoid errors and poor performance, a basic understanding of programming principles is needed, so it's not great for a designer who hasn't studied a lot of coding.
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
We use it for almost all kinds of applications. It's not important if the app is small or big. It's good for DB connections, SOA architecture, office files transformations. The good thing is that it's client side, so we don't have to waste our server resources but can use the client's computer for business and visualization layer.
MM
Read full review
Pros
  • Runs on Windows, Mac OS, Android and Apple iOS.
  • Allows developers to use tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Flash Professional and even text editor to develop an app.
  • Adobe AIR runtime and AIR SDK are free.
JM
John Mihaila
Software Manager
Read full review
  • Reliable
  • Dependable
  • Innovative
  • Creative
Zubair Ahmed | TrustRadius Reviewer
Zubair Ahmed
Resident Physician
Read full review
Cons
  • Adobe Air applications are taxing on a user's CPU, especially considering how simple a lot of the apps are.
  • Updating and installing Air based applications is very user unfriendly, often asks for updates that are aggressively pushed to the front of the user.
  • As HTML 5 has gotten more and more sophisticated, for basic things a lot of times browser-based apps make a lot more sense.
Chris Cookson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Chris Cookson
Junior Animator
Read full review
  • No support for the popular H.264 video codec
  • Another effort to promote proprietary technology rather than open standards
  • Silverlight is a browser-only solution
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
Usability
Although Adobe AIR is just an SDK without an actual "UI" it's commonly used within Flash, Flash Builder, or FlashDevelop. Considering the integration with Flash IDE, there are very few tools that can compete with its features.
Thomas Gorence | TrustRadius Reviewer
Thomas Gorence
Software Developer
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
There are definitely other platforms out there that are awesome but Adobe AIR is just what our other developers were used to using but we do have some success.
YI
Yosef Ing
Director of Social Media
Read full review
Microsoft Silverlight allows more adaptability and it integrates well with our products across the company. Adobe Flash crashes or doesn't work with our shipping campus.
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Using Adobe AIR allows your team to be comprised of Flash/ActionScript 3 developers, which can be easy/cheap to find compared to other disciplines (based on location). This can lower the bottom-line in terms of engineering costs.
  • As the Adobe AIR SDK is free to use, the cost of entry is basically free. Additionally, the Adobe AIR SDK may be used in conjunction with a free IDE, such as FlashDevelop, making the entire stack completely free to use.
  • One negative impact is the stigma against Adobe Flash/AIR. Due to Adobe's less than stellar track record (in terms of support and security) with both Flash and Flash Mobile, there are numerous clients that we've dealt with, that refused to approve Adobe AIR as a tool.
Thomas Gorence | TrustRadius Reviewer
Thomas Gorence
Software Developer
Read full review
  • Negative that the application is no longer supported
  • Impact to delivery of new features
  • Customer dissatisfaction
Kiel Knisely | TrustRadius Reviewer
Kiel Knisely
Software Engineer
Read full review
ScreenShots