Friday, September 17, 2021

Difference between JAX-RS, Restlet, Jersey, RESTEasy, and Apache CXF Frameworks

The JAX-RS is a Java specification request (JSR 311 & JSR 339) that standardizes the development and deployment of RESTful web services using Java and JEE technologies. It provides API in Java Programming language to create web services according to the REST (Representational State Transfer) architectural pattern. Both Restlet and Jersey are two of the most popular implementation of JAX-RS used for developing RESTful web services in Java ecosystem but there is a couple of other implementation also exist like Apache Wink, Apache CXF, and JBoss RESTEasy, along with omnipresent and the most popular option of creating REST web services with Spring Framework, Spring Boot, and Spring MVC

In this article, I'll introduce these RESTful web services frameworks in the Java world. It's not a very detailed post about the strength and weaknesses of each of the frameworks but will just give you enough to understand them in detail later.

It will also help you to answer the RESTful web service questions like, what is the difference between Restlet, Jersey, and Apache CFX? which one you have used in the past, or which one will you choose for your next project, and why?

And, if you are a complete beginner into RESTful web services then I also suggest you take a look at the Master Java Web Service and RESTful API with Spring Boot course by Ranga Rao and In28Minutes official on Udemy. It's a great hands-on course to learn how to develop RESTful web service in Java.




Difference between Jersey, RESTEAsy, Restlet, and Apache CXF for RESTful Web Service

without wasting any more of your time here is the list of differences between these popular frameworks for developing REST APIs in Java.

1. Jersey

Jersey RESTful Web Services framework is open source, production quality, a framework for developing RESTful Web Services in Java that provides support for JAX-RS APIs and serves as a JAX-RS (JSR 311 & JSR 339) reference Implementation and initially provided by Sun Microsystem.

Jersey framework is more than the JAX-RS Reference Implementation. Jersey provides its own API that extends the JAX-RS toolkit with additional features and utilities to further simplify RESTful service and client development. Jersey also exposes numerous extension SPIs so that developers may extend Jersey to best suit their needs.

Jersey also has some of the best tooling (IDE) support especially if you are using Netbeans. So you can achieve better productivity from the tooling perspective. There are some challenges with Jersey-Spring integration, especially with AOP.
The latest release of Jersey is 2.22.2





2. Restlet

One of the first open-source frameworks for developing RESTful web services in Java. Restlet Framework helps Java developers build better web APIs that follow the REST architecture style. Restlet has a light core but thanks to its pluggable extension, it is also a comprehensive REST framework for Java. It supports all REST concepts (Resource, Representation, Connector, Component, etc.) and is suitable for both client and server Web applications.

It supports major Web standards like HTTP, SMTP, XML, JSON, OData, OAuth, RDF, RSS, WADL, and Atom.

Many extensions are also available to integrate with Servlet, Spring, Jetty, Simple, JAXB, JAX-RS, JiBX, Velocity, FreeMarker, XStream, Jackson, SLF4J, SDC, and much more!

Special editions for Android, GWT, GAE, Java SE, Java EE, and OSGi are also available and kept synchronized with an automated porting process.

Another advantage of using the Restlet framework is that Restlet based program can run as a standalone Java application. The Restlet also supports the Java EE environment with the help of the Jetty web container. 

So this may result in a lightweight implementation and have a unique value that way. There are some challenges or manual work involved in de-marshaling the response into a java object. See Restlet in Action book to learn more about the Restlet framework.

Difference between JAX-RS, Restlet, Jersey, RESTEasy, and Apache CXF Frameworks



The CXF is another free and open-source web service framework and a JAX-RS implementation from Apache. CXF helps you to build and develop services using frontend programming APIs like JAX-RS and JAX-WS. These services can speak a variety of protocols such as SOAP, XML/HTTP, RESTful HTTP, or CORBA and work over a variety of transports such as HTTP, JMS, and JBI.

One of the key differences between Apache CXF and Jersy's JAX-RS implementation is that it is implemented as a CXF filter sitting behind the servlets, while Jersey and RestEasy are, servlet filters.

One more advantage of using ApacheCXF is that it makes it easy to produce both a JAX-RS and JAX-WS (SOAP) endpoint from the exact same data model and service interface at the same time. So if that is something that matters to you, this may be the way to go. CXF had issues with handling SSL and HTTP proxies which seem to have been addressed in recent releases.  

You can also read Developing Web Services with Apache CXF and Axis2 to learn more about developing RESTful web services using the Apache CXF framework in Java.

Difference between JAX-RS, Restlet, Jersey, and Apache CXF Framework



4. RESTEasy

The RESTEasy is another good JBoss project that provides various frameworks to help you build RESTful Web Services and RESTful Java applications. It is a fully certified and portable implementation of the JAX-RS specification.

RESTEasy may be a good choice if your environment is JBoss oriented e.g. you are using JBoss Application Server, Hibernate and RedHat Middleware, Linux, etc.

It also provides good integration with EJB 3.0 and SEAM (something to consider if you have a need for that). Also, it has a proprietary caching for URL or query which could be handy for high volume applications.





That's all about the difference between JAX-RS, Restlet, and Jersey in Java. In short, JAX-RS provides the API and these two are the implementation of that API, where Jersey serves as reference implementation but Restlet has got bigger and more matured community around it. All of these are also mature and production-ready frameworks.

The chances of going wrong with any of them are quite less. They all have integration capabilities with Spring.  So You can use either Restlet, Jersey, or any other framework to develop RESTful web services in Java.

If you have some Java experience but are new to REST and want to learn how to develop RESTful web services in Java, then you can also check out Eugen's REST with Spring course, which will teach you to develop RESTful Web Services using Spring Framework. The course is very detailed and expects that you are familiar with the Spring framework, so ideal for intermediate and experienced Java programmers.

Eugen also has different options suited to the different experience levels and needs e.g. REST with Spring: The Intermediate class is good for basic knowledge while REST with Spring: The Masterclass is more detail-oriented. You can check out all his course options here.


Other REST tutorials and articles you may like to explore
  1. Restlet HelloWorld Example in Java and Eclipse (tutorial
  2. What is the difference between SOAP and REST Web Services? (see here
  3. 15 REST Web Services framework Interview Question (see here
  4. What are idempotent and safe methods of HTTP and REST? (answer
  5. Top 10 RESTful web services interview questions for Java developers (see
  6. What is the purpose of different HTTP methods in REST? (answer
  7. Top 10 Java Web service interview questions (see here
  8. When to use the PUT vs POST method in REST? (answer
  9. 3 ways to convert String to JSON Object in Java? (example
  10. 5 JSON parsing library Java and JEE developer should know (article)

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2 comments :

Unknown said...

Which one size wise is smaller when it comes to dependencies when embedding in a microservice?

Anonymous said...

It is good and give more information about type of implementation Rest API ....thank's

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