Between Lokad and CloudFx, we are considering which framework will best support continued rapid development of high quality and scalable cloud solutions on Windows Azure. Lokad and CloudFx both seem to provide a nice abstraction layer on top of the different Azure services, as well as provide a framework for scaling as well.
Lokad is available on GitHub, while the CloudFx framework source has not been released. Both are copyrighted, but with permissive licenses. CloudFx is developed by Microsoft, while Lokad is developed by a third party. Lokad development seems lax (latest updates Feb/April of 2012), while CloudFx has had multiple updates throughout 2012. Right now I would lean towards CloudFx for its comprehensive API and ownership by Microsoft.
What has been your experience using either framework and your recommendation? Are there any alternative approaches to either?
Technical differences between the two aside, from what I can tell, Lokad has more or less been dropped: they seem to have pretty much stopped updating it (last update May 2012). We're switching our project over to CloudFx and moving forward. For anything new, I'd definitely use CloudFx (or at least don't use Lokad).