Play Framework is excellent for rapid web development. The edit/compile/run cycle is very short. Just like PHP, make a change in the Java file, refresh your b

Play Framework is excellent for rapid web development. The edit/compile/run cycle is very short. Just like PHP, make a change in the Java file, refresh your browser, and the compilation/deployment is done right the way automatically. The URL request routing and handling is straight forward and powerful. Request parameters are mapped to Java objects automatically. The Groovy-based rendering template engine is very simple and powerful. Play employs the easy to use JPA by default for DB backend layer but can use other frameworks easily. In one project I've used the JPA to interface with Oracle. In other projects I've used the Objectify library to access GAE's NoSQL Datastore when developing Play in GAE. Both work great.