I heard struts adds overhead. so i am trying to write a front controller pattern without using struts. have anyone tried this? is it worth the effort?

Any front controller (Including those that you may feel tempted to write yourself) will impose some kind of overhead. The real question you should be asking is 'Does the amount of overhead, introduced by Struts, acceptable for my application?'. In most cases, the answer will probably be 'Yes'. It all boils down to 'premature optimisation' and the fact that you shouldn't be doing it. For most applications, the front controller will not be the bottleneck - that will probabbly be database access, internet connection speed etc. Don't re-invent the wheel, use Struts, Spring or whatever framework you're familiar with, only optimise when it can be proven to be an issue.

As to front controller,I always think JSF is very easy to use. Writing your own front controller is a good idea but hard to implement. http://www.hotdir.biz/Internet/