In this page and sub-pages, we try to put together some feature-by-feature comparison between Spring, Pico/Nano and Yan/Nuts.
This comparison is focused on "IOC container" functionalities. So toolkits such as Spring DAO, Spring MVC are not taken into consideration. A good IOC container should be able to plug&play these services any way.
Throughout the comparisons, I tried to be objective. Yet, due to my limited knowledge on the compared containers, it is certainly possible that some facts and comparisons are inaccurate or simply incorrect. I'll be grateful for any correction.
We'll start with a big fat comparison table:
Features |
Spring |
Pico |
Yan/Nuts |
|---|---|---|---|
xml configuration |
Yes |
Through Nano Container |
Yes |
Auto wiring |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Manual wiring |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Extensible auto wiring support |
No |
No |
|
Auto Bean Registration |
No |
|
Yes |
Life cycle |
Singleton only |
Singleton only |
Both singleton and prototype |
Eager Instantiation |
Default for all singletons |
Yes |
Yes |
Lazy Instantiation |
Yes |
Yes |
Default |
Parametered and ad-hoc life cycle |
No |
No |
Through <lifecycle> tag |
Constructor Injection |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Setter Injection |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Factory Method Injection |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Referencing Field |
FieldRetrievingFactoryBean |
Implement ComponentAdapter |
Through <field> tag. |
Anonymous sub-bean |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Ad-hoc bean combination |
No |
No |
Through <sequence> or <callcc> tags |
Concise collection literal |
No |
No |
Yes |
named local bean |
No |
No |
Through <local> tag |
abstract bean |
Yes |
|
No |
bean function |
no |
|
yes |
import module |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
module private beans |
No |
No |
Through "export" and "hide" attribute of <module> |
Selective import by bean names |
No |
No |
Through "includes" and "excludes" attribute of <import> |
Import with namespace |
No |
No |
Through "namespace" attribute of <import> |
Singleton bean with prototype property |
Requires Cglib and bytecode generation |
ComponentAdapter combination |
Through component combination |
Dependency Injection for objects not managed by container |
Supported at the cost of Spring API dependency |
No |
Through <function> and <factory> tag |
Extensible tag library |
No. But FactoryBean is a substitute |
No |
By implementing subclasses of Nut |
Configuration unit-testable within configuration file. |
No |
No |
By using <sequence> together with <assertEqual>, <assertSame>, <if>, <unless>, <fail> etc. |
autoproxy |
Yes |
|
No |
Custom PropertyEditor |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Container hierarchy |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
AOP support |
Both Spring AOP and AspectJ |
Via dynaop |
Any AOP solution can be plugged in. An integration package for spring AOP is provided out-of-box. |
Declarative Transactional support |
Yes |
|
No. But Spring's declarative transaction support is integrated. |
Scripting language support |
Not yet |
Nano Container |
Not yet |
Details:
- Annotation Support Compared
- AOP Compared
- Bean Maintainability Compared
- Bean Reusability Compared
- Expressiveness Compared
- JBoss Microcontainer Compared
- Lifecycle Compared
- Module System Compared
- Services Compared
- Sorcery Compared
- Syntax Compared
Created by benyu benyu
On Mon Nov 28 15:38:13 CST 2005
Using TimTam
3 Comments
Hide/Show CommentsDec 07, 2005
Paul-Michael Bauer
Spring supports both singleton and prototype beans.
Dec 07, 2005
benyu benyu
The following is copied from Spring Reference 3.4.1.2, which convinced me that "prototype" is not supported:
Important note: when deploying a bean in the prototype mode, the lifecycle of the bean changes slightly. By definition, Spring cannot manage the complete lifecycle of a non-singleton/prototype bean, since after it is created, it is given to the client and the container does not keep track of it at all any longer. You can think of Spring's role when talking about a non-singleton/prototype bean as a replacement for the 'new' operator. Any lifecycle aspects past that point have to be handled by the client. The lifecycle of a bean in the BeanFactory is further described in Section 3.4.1, "Lifecycle interfaces".
Dec 07, 2005
benyu benyu
This is lifecycle-management related only, btw.
Spring does support prototype beans, but not the lifecycles of them.