SDL Web 8.5 with CWA

Question

Does SDL Web 8.5 support CWA? As mentioned in product documentation it's deprecated but will work.

https://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/web/pub.xql?action=home&pub=SDL%20Web-v5&lang=en-US#docid=GUID-9CA91AD6-7BD7-4B7F-B966-7FC05FBAF71B&addHistory=true&query=&scope=&tid=&filename=GUID-07499C0F-E04D-4FEB-BA97-D655E2F148A9.xml&resource=&inner_id=&toc=false&eventType=lcContent.loadDocGUID-9CA91AD6-7BD7-4B7F-B966-7FC05FBAF71B

Answer 1

Deprecated, in general, means that something will work, but it's an outdated feature/module/functionality which will be dropped in one of the future releases. Definition of deprecated here.

In other words, it should only be used for maintaining existing implementation and should be upgraded as soon as possible. Also, its a telltale for someone implementing said feature/module/functionality to take a different route. For example, in-process Content Delivery roles became deprecated after the introduction of the microservices architecture in Web 8.

Shiva in his answer already mentions some alternatives, I would suggest you to take a look at those.

Answer 2

As you have already highlighted, CWA will work with 8.5 (deprecated). Do you have a specific question regarding this? A high level but still relevant difference between CWA and DD4T is here

Is there a specific reason that you are looking at DXA? DXA also have a JAVA web application.

DD4T JAVA is also available but I would highly recommend moving to DXA due to the upcoming releases and the support from the SDL and community.