Helma is an open source web application framework for fast and efficient scripting and serving of your websites and Internet applications.

Helma is written in Java and employs Javascript for its server-side scripting environment, removing the need for compilation cycles and reducing development costs while giving you instant access to leverage the whole wealth of Java libraries out there.

Helma pioneered the simple and codeless mapping of application objects to database tables. In addition, an embedded object-oriented database performs automatic data persistence of unmapped objects.

Helma has proven itself to be stable and fast, capable of serving high traffic sites with hundreds of thousands of dynamic pages per day. The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, popular weblog hosting sites such as antville.org, twoday.net, and blogger.de, among many others, have successfully been deploying Helma for several years.

Helma 1.5.3 makes dynamically loaded code repositories available immediately after the app.addRepository() statement and offers improved logging behavior along with several small bug fixes. Download Helma 1.5.3

New features in Helma 1.5 include a flexible new way to load multiple code repositories, many low-level improvements and features such as updateable collections, additional web-based development tools that can run inside your applications and complement existing external debugging and database management tools, and a library of Javascript prototypes and methods that extend the Java based core of Helma.

Following the release of Helma 1.5.3, we look ahead to Helma 1.6 and Helma 2.0, as you can see on the project roadmap. While Helma 1.5 still uses Rhino 1.5, Helma 1.6 will feature Rhino 1.6 and will bring E4X to Helma's server-side scripting environment.

Helma 2.0 is a parallel development branch that will lay the foundation for future versions with a reduced core, allowing for an even more flexible framework around it.

Helma 1.4.3 is out and comes with an enhanced version of the Rhino JavaScript Debugger. To activate the debugger, just add the line rhino.debug = true to the app.properties file of the application you want to debug. Helma 1.4.3 also fixes a thread concurrency problem that could randomly mess up responses on busy multiprocessor machines, so if you're running Helma on a SMP box be sure to upgrade!

Get Involved

Helma keeps evolving and growing. You can be part of it if you want to. The first thing to do is to get one of the download packages and start playing. If you get interested, join the mailing list. We're eager to hear from anybody using Helma, even if it's just a few kind or critical words.