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As a seasoned Spring user I was assuming that Spring Integration would make the most sense in a recent project requiring some (JMS) messaging capabilities (more details). After some days working with Spring Integration it still feels like a lot of configuration overhead given the amount of channels you have to configure to bring some request-response (listening on different JMS queues) communications in place.
Therefore I was looking for some background information how Camel is different from Spring Integration, but it seems like information out there are pretty spare, I found:
Question is: what experiences did you make on using the one stack over the other? In which scenarios would you recommend Camel were Spring Integration lacks support? Where do you see pros and cons of each? Any advise from real-world projects are highly appreciated.
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Spring Integration enables lightweight messaging within Spring-based applications and supports integration with external systems via declarative adapters. Those adapters provide a higher-level of abstraction over Spring's support for remoting, messaging, and scheduling.
Apache Camel is a great choice when you're working with data that needs to be shared between systems. This happens when you have data stored in different applications. For example, personnel files might be stored in an HR system, but need need to be shared with Finance to be able to process the monthly payroll.
Kafka is messaging platform with streaming ability to process messages Apache Kafka. Camel is ETL framework it can transform messages/events/data from "any" (see endpoint list by Camel) input point and send it to "any" output Apache Camel - Enterprise Integration Patterns.
Spring Web FlowSWF integrates with existing frameworks like Spring MVC, Struts, and JSF, in both servlet and portlet environments. If you have a business process (or processes) that would benefit from a conversational model as opposed to a purely request model, then SWF may be the solution.
We choose Camel over Spring-Integration because the fluent API is really nice. We actually use it in Spring projects and use Spring to configure part of it. The programming API's are clear and there is a large set of sensible components.
We did a small scale shootout and basically at that time for our requirement Camel won. We use it mainly to transfer internal datafiles to/from external parties which usually requires format conversions sending it using ftp/sftp/... or attaching it to an email and sending it out.
We found the edit-compile-debug cycle reduced. Using groovy to experiment setting up routes are added bonuses.
Spring-Integration is a great product too, and I am quite sure it would satisfy our needs too.
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I only recommend Spring Integration if you already have got a Spring project and you have just to add some "basic" integration using File, FTP, JMS, JDBC, and so on.
Apache Camel has two main advantages:
Because Apache Camel has very good integration with Spring, I would even use it instead of Spring Integration in most Spring projects.
If you need more details, you can read my experiences in my blog post: Spoilt for Choice: Which Integration Framework to use – Spring Integration, Mule ESB or Apache Camel?
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I have recently conducted a Camel vs Spring Integration shoot-out with the aim to integrate Apache Kafka. Despite being an avid Spring developer, I sadly found my suspicion with Spring's ever-growing Project stack confirmed: Spring is awesome as IOC-Container to serve as glue for other framework, but it fails at providing viable alternatives to those frameworks. There might be exceptions to this, namely everything to do with MVC, where Spring came from and where it does a great job, but other attempts to provide new functionality on top of container features fall short for three reasons and the SI Kafka use case confirms all of them:
Now, back to the results of my shoot-out: most importantly I am impressed by Camels overall concept of routes between endpoints. Kafka seamlessly integrates with this concept and three lines of configuration are enough to get everything up-and-running. Problems encountered during the process are neatly addressed by ample documentation from the project team as well as a lot of questions on Stackoverflow. Last but not least, there is a comprehensive integration into Spring that leaves no wishes unfulfilled.
With SI on the contrary, the documentation for the Kafka integration is quite intense and still fails to explain clearly how to integrate Kafka. The integration of Kafka is pressed into the SI-way of doing things, which adds extra complexity. Other documentation, e.g. on Stackoverflow is also less plentiful and less helpful than for Camel.
My conclusion: cobbler stick to your trade - use Spring as a container and Camel as system integration framework.
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It really depends on what you want to do. If you need to extend something to build your own messaging solution Spring Integration has the better programming model. If you need something that supports many protocols without custom code, Camel is ahead of Spring Integration.
Having a small scale shootout is a very good idea, just make sure you're trying to do the type of things that you'd typically be doing in the project.
--disclaimer: I'm a Spring Integration committer
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