ESIGate lets you use remote templates. This means that all the main design elements (basic HTML content and structure, shared textual content, css, images... ) are not included in the application but assembled on-the-fly for each user request.

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The benefits are:

• A same design can be used in several applications: graphical, textual or even layout changes are applyed in real time, without deployment or restart.
• Template is hosted on an HTTP server and can be provided by a dynamic application as a content management system or a portal. These products often provide administration features for design and layout which can be used directly with ESIGate.
• Better performances since applications render fewer HTML code and content. Shared content are stored in ESIGate cache and merged at high speed on each request.

ESIGate is both a proxy and a cache:

HTML content is cached according to HTTP directives returned by each URL. Caching can be forced globally or on specific urls by using extensions.

Embedded or distributed cache: each ESIGate instance can use its own cache or share a common cache using ehcache or memcached.

Background revalidation and reuse of stale content on error allows constant response times and failure-resistance.

Non-cacheable pages are usually composed of cacheable content and some dynamic content. With ESIGate, applications can generate the dynamic part only (fast) and reuse all cacheable content (bloc-level cache).

ESIGate processes HTML content transparently. As a result it is compatible with most framework, tools and web applications as long as they provide web interfaces (HTML or XML over HTTP).

ESIGate has been used successfully with:

• Languages: PHP, Java...
• Frameworks: Struts2, Wicket, JSF, JQuery...
• Products: Drupal, eZ publish, Jahia, Varnish...

ESIGate fully supports the ESI 1.0 W3C proposal.

Unique additions improve ESI, allowing its use on wider usecases:

• Fragments and XPath support to securely extract parts of HTML pages.
• Ability to replace fragments on inclusion, enabling shared template use.
• Support for XSLT-transformed XML fragments.
• Specific configuration for each backend (ttl, extensions...).

ESIGate provides a JAVA extension API. Extensions can hook on the request lifecycle and change behavior according to your needs.

Extensions can also handle authentication. ESIGate comes with a native CAS SSO extension.

ESIGate can also be embedded in applications and used for API to build fast and great applications.