This section outlines the benefits and drawbacks of AJAX.

Benefits

Low usage of bandwidth – AJAX facilitates faster web page renderings by reducing the web server hits. AJAX pages can load much faster when the payload coming down is lesser in size. This is achieved by generating the HTML locally within the browser and also the JavaScript calls and actual data is brought down. A large result set having data from multiple pages can be a good example in this regard. AJAX allows loading the HTML content of the page (with table structures and its tags) locally in the web browser. Additionally, some web applications load stubs of event handlers and subsequently “load the functions on the fly.” All of these help in managing the optimal consumption of bandwidth for applications having complex functions and logic.

Usage of XMLHttpRequest – It is able to make requests to pages not set up for AJAX, can set or get all HTTP headers, can make HTTP requests using any type (GET, POST, PROPFIND, and so on), supports full control over POST requests and allows for any type of data encoding.

Drawbacks

Response Time – AJAX based development should take care of the response time between client requests and server response as it normally gets delayed due to the fact that smart preloading of data and proper handling of XMLHttpRequest object may cause delay in lining up with the web application.

Back button in the web browser does not work – In AJAX based development, the pages that are created dynamically do not get stored into the browser history and the “Back” button in the user’s browser will not work in this case.

JavaScript Dependency – AJAX based development depends on JavaScript to a great extent. JavaScript is implemented differently in different web browsers and proper caution needs to be taken to ensure that the web pages behave the same in different browsers.