Railo

Railo is a ColdFusion compiler for translating and executing of CFML-based websites. The compiler translates the ColdFusion code into Java classes which can be executed on a Java server.Railo also comes with a runtime engine, which contains all necessary libraries for the translated code.Railo automatically detects when to translate a CFM file or when to use the runtime engine.Railo compares best with JSP. JSP uses different syntax but the main functionality is almost the same.Because Railo implements most of the JSP interfaces, it is highly compatible with JSP.

Railo Flavours

Railo comes in three main product editions:
*Railo Express (aka Railix) is the Live version of Railo, which utilises Jetty to run on a host machine without requiring installation. Railix is ideal for quickly trying out Railo, or for development away from one's main development machine, but it is not recommended for production use.
* Railo Server is the main version of Railo which can be integrated into a standard web server, and is suitable for production use.
* Railo WAR is the Web Archive version, suitable for use on any standardized J2EE server.
* There is also Railo Custom allowing you to customise Railo to your specific needs.

As of version 3.1 Railo will be open source. It will be hosted with the jboss.org project.

Railo is available in four different versions, depending on what you need it for:
* Railo Developer is the default and for development use only. It has the same features like the enterprise version. The only restriction is that it only allows access from 10 different IP addresses.
* Railo Community is a free version for low budget business applications. It has some minor restrictions in functionality (CFVIDEO, Amazon S3 resource) but no restrictions in use. It is the same product as Railo Professional used to be, but without costs.
* Railo Enterprise is the same as professional, but without a limit on the number of webroots allowed. It is priced at €1800. In addition, it contains the full server administrator for configuring all web security and default settings for each single web.

In November this year, Railo Technologies will release version 3.1 of Railo as an Open Source version under LGPL II.

CFML Compatibility

The current release, Railo 3.0, is mostly compatible with CF 8.0.1, but has a small number of discrepancies. There are also several additions/extensions to CFML provided by Railo, including the ability to quickly define Arrays, Structs and Querys in a single function.Performance is what makes Railo so interesting. Even with debugging turned on, Railo seems to be the fastest CFML-engine available.

Framework Compatibility

Any CFML framework compatible CFMX 8.0.1 is likely to work on Railo. The following is a list of popular frameworks known to run on Railo:
* Fusebox (Versions 4.x and 5.x)
* Mach-II
* Model-Glue
* Coldbox x
* CFWheels
* FarCry CMS
* Sava CMS
* Transfer ORM
* Reactor ORM

External links

* [http://www.railo.ch/en/ Railo website]
* [http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/railo_talk/ "Railo Talk" Official Discussion List]