Advantages of Executors over new Thread

Question

What benefit is there to use Executors over just Threads in a Java program.

Such as

ExecutorService pool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
void someMethod() {
    //Thread
    new Thread(new SomeRunnable()).start();

    //vs

    //Executor
    pool.execute(new SomeRunnable());
}

Does an executor just limit the number of threads it allows to have running at once (Thread Pooling)? Does it actually multiplex runnables onto the threads it creates instead? If not is it just a way to avoid having to write new Thread(runnable).start() every time?

Answer 1

Yes, executors will generally multiplex runnables onto the threads they create; they'll constrain and manage the number of threads running at once; they'll make it much easier to customize concurrency levels. Generally, executors should be preferred over just creating bare threads.