Alfresco One 5.x Developer's Guide - second edition

Alfresco architecture

Many of Alfresco's competitors (particularly in the closed-source space) have sprawling footprints composed of multiple, sometimes competing, technologies that have been acquired and integrated over time. Some have undergone massive infrastructure overhauls over the years, resulting in bizarre vestigial tails of sorts. Luckily, Alfresco doesn't suffer from these traits. On the contrary, Alfresco's architecture shows the following characteristics:

• It is relatively straightforward
• It is built with state-of-the-art frameworks and open source components
• It supports several important content management and related standards

Let's look at each of these characteristics, starting with a high-level look at the Alfresco architecture.