JSF is the latest offering for the Java web application development. JSF is an MVC framework, similar to Struts. JSF is an enhancement to Struts:

1. The action is now mapped to a method of a bean instead of a servlet. Components can now have events. This is much more like code-behind in ASP.NET. This reduces the number of files one has to work with.
2. More custom tags and richer controls, such as Data Tables.

Here is how JSF compares with ASP.NET 2.0:

1. ASP.NET 2.0 is the mainstream development framework in .net world. JSF is still considered as unproven. Only a quarter or less Java web developer jobs requires JSF.
2. JSF is a specification instead of implementation. Depending on the implementation used, one may get more or less rich components. So evaluating implementation itself is a major task.

In conclusion, projects using ASP.NET 2.0 should expect stable and well behaved frameworks. Developers should find it much easier to develop web applications with richer functionality and to work with AJAX.