StackComparison

General Features

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire (1.2)	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS 10g
Basic Profile 1.1 Compliant	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Easily Create Services from POJOs	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Open Source	X	X	X		X	X	X
RPC-Encoding	X			X	X		X [6]	X
Spring Support	X	X	X			X	X
REST Support		X	X				X	X
IDEA Plugins		X			X	X	X	Ant
Eclipse Plugins		X	(STP)		X	X	X	Ant
NetBeans Plugins							X	Ant
JDeveloper								X
Hot Deployment		X	X		X	?	X	X
Soap 1.1	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Soap 1.2	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Streaming XML (StAX based)		X	X			X	X
WSDL 1.1 ->Code (Client)	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
WSDL 1.1 ->Code (Server)	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
WSDL 2.0 ->Code (Client)		X		?	?	?		?
WSDL2.0 ->Code (Server)		X		?	?	?		?
Client-side Asynchrony	X	X	X				X	With BPEL
Server-side Asynchrony	X	X	X				X	With BPEL
Policy-driven code generation		X	X

Web Services related JSR standards

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire (1.2)	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS 10g
JAX-RPC	X			X?	X		X	X
JAX-WS		[Early Access/Nightly]	X			[Early Access]	X [5]
JSR 181	X	[Early Access/Nightly]	X		X	X	X	X
JSR 181 on Java 1.4					X	X
SAAJ (1.2/1.3)	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
JSR 109							X	X
JBI			X				X

Data Bindings

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS 10g
XMLBeans Support	X	X	X			X
Castor Support	X	X [9]				X
JiBX		X				X
JAXB	X	X	X		X	X	X [5]	JAX-RPC

WS-*

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS 10g
WS-Addressing	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	with BPEL
WS-Atomic Transaction	X	X					X
WS-Business Activity		X
WS-Coordination	X	X					X
WS-Eventing		X			X
WS-Metadata Exchange		X [10]					X
WS-Notification	X	X [12]		?		?
WS-ReliableMessaging	X	X	X				X
WS-Policy		X	X				X	X
WS-Secure Conversation		X					X
WS-Security Policy		X					X
WS-Security	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
WS-Trust		X					X
WS-Transfer		X
WSDL 1.1 Support	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
WSDL 2.0 Support		X

Transports

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS 10g
HTTP	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
JMS	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Jabber	Experimental	Experimental				X
SMTP/POP3	X	X					X
TCP	X	X					X
In-VM	?	X	X	?	?	?	X	?

Attachments

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS 10g
Soap w/ Attachments	X	X	X	X	X		X	X
DIME	X			X				X
MTOM		X	X		X	X	X	X

Encoding Table

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS
XML Textual	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
MTOM		X	X		X	X	X	X
FastInfoset		X	X				X
JSON		X	X				X

WS-Addressing Versions

This section is incomplete. If a stack has no WS-A support listed next to it, it probably means that this section has not been filled in for it.

Feature	Axis 1.x	Axis2	CXF	Glue	JBossWS	XFire	Metro@GlassFish	OracleAS 10g
2003-03			?
2004-04			?
2004-08	X	X	?			X	X	X
2005-08	X	X	X			X	X	X
2006-05 [8]	X	X	X				X

There are only non-normative interop tests for the 2005-08/2006-05 versions and not very many of those. The only way to achieve 100% interoperability is not to use WS-A at all. If you must use it, use only a URI and not Reference Properties or Reference Parameters, which are not easily converted from version to version, if they can be translated at all.

===== Notes =====
#1 Bootstrapped this page from XFire Stack Comparion page on Oct 9, 2006.
#2 Removed forward looking statements like "Coming in ..."
#3 Removed JBI JSR as none of the soap stacks here are packaged out of the box with a JBI container.
#4 Replaced "Via..." with "?"
#5 JAX-RPC 1.1, JAX-WS 2.0 and JAX-WS 2.1 RI are combined together in Metro. Similarly JAXB 2.0 and JAXB 2.1 are combined together in Metro. JAX-WS 2.0 and JAXB 2.0 functionality is available in Java SE 6 as well.
#6 Only available through the JAX-RPC 1.1 APIs.
#7 Derived from ws Addressing review
#8 WSA 1.0 final: shares the same xmlns as the 2005-08 release.
#9 samples\databinding illustrates how to use castor with "wsdl2java -d none" generated code.
#10 Mex Module for Axis2 is available here
#11 Transfer Module for Axis2 is available here
#12 Apache Muse project has support for WS-Notifications