Updated April 5, 2023
Difference between RxJava vs Reactor
RxJava and Reactor are some of the very famous libraries that are used for some of the development related to the backend of any application. Rxjava supports projects mostly related to JDK8, whereas Reactor is related to all the projects related to JDK 8+. RxJava creates a lot of problems that can lead to memory-related issues, but when used with spring 5.2+, then it gets very well. The reactor is often called a reactive programming paradigm which mostly involves reactive streams API for manipulation and making the overall API streaming activities.
Head to Head Comparison between RxJava vs Reactor (Infographics)
Below are the top 8 differences between RxJava vs Reactor:
Key Differences between RxJava vs Reactor
Following are the key differences between RxJava vs Reactor are given below:
- Reactors in terms of checked exceptions include and use a standard type of functional dependency in JDKs with function in its API keeping and include discrepancies in handling checked exceptions within the code and having not to allow throwing of exception with java.util.function.Function.
- RxJava have io.reactive.function.The function which is not dependent on the constraints and with similar code gets compiled properly. Although sometimes checked exception is not needed, but RxJava makes the experience quite enhancing with a major advantage.
- The testing pattern is quite good and nice in Reactor, which is not that much convincing in the case of RxJava, where RxJava includes externalization configuration with scheduler and making it replace with the unit test cases. But in the case of the reactor, it is possible to make the testing paradigm quite streamlined with all the configurations available with the scheduler handy.
- Suppose in case there are many production environments that exist then, in that case, it is not possible to make use of RxJava2 then the most preferred one will be Reactor which has the scheduler defined in a way that wraps around the entire code into one.
- Reactor makes use of virtual clock whereas the case is not same with Rxjava which can also sort the complexity as it makes use of stubs for any test suite analysis.
- Debugging feature in Reactor is quite enhancing and efficient as compared to RxJava as Reactor includes Hooks.onOperatorDebug() standard library helping in tracking all signals which are used in triggering of flow throughout the stream. Still, it does not provide a proper stack for tracing the signals with the provocation of proper stack traced API with itself. This is not the case with Rxjava when compared for debugging aspects, as it does not provide this standard library for ease.
- Spring supports for RxJava 1 and 2 both, but reactor can work without Spring framework as well. If Reactor is used without Spring framework, then to maintain the consistency, one must make tight integration with Webflux, including both mono and flux profusely. It is not like RxJava does not work well with spring; it’s just that the reusability purpose gets solved because of the fact that it involves a reactor that does not require an additional variant.
- RxJava comes into the picture a lot when it comes to android development; at that time, the reactor was not that much recommended because RxJava helps in solving two of the major problem, one of modeling UI events as streams and the other by switching forth and back with threads to make I/O distribute equally.
- If coming and judging with the maturity of tool then the recommended one will be RxJava when compared to Reactor because it is being used in many of the projects as it is well established with lot many features which are liked by developers. Although Reactor also comes with a lot of features needed by developers in many scenarios, it does not meet the requirement when compared with RxJava.
- All the flows and API maintained by Reactor are enhancing and efficient when compared to RxJava but still some gels well with the requirement when it comes to implementation.
RxJava vs Reactor Comparison Table
There exists a proper comparison between RxJava and Reactor which comes up according to the usage and requirement, some are illustrated below:
|
RxJava |
Reactor |
| Most of the developers consider Rxjava as a “library for building non-blocking applications which are driven over any JVM.” | Most of the developers consider Reactor as “Extensions reactive for most of the JVM.” |
| Rxjava is one of the java tools which is used as one of the fourth generation reactive used for building many non-blocking applications for handling API streaming. | Although Reactor is also a java-based tool that is used as one of the fourth-generation tools, it still has a lot of asynchronous libraries with event-driven actions with already observable scenarios. |
| Rxjava 2 is published under the Apache License, where RxJava provides Java API for asynchronous programming with observable streams. | The reactor is a fourth-generation reactive library launched by Spring that builds on streaming APIs for which the result of a reactive vocabulary.
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| RxJava 2.x still supports Java 6 and is mostly used on Android | On the other hand, Reactor targets for Java 8+ with APIs like java. time and java.util.function. |
| Type safety in the case of RxJava comprises of granularity of fine, coarse present in Rxjava 1 or 2. | Type safety in case of Reactor is not compatible and is absent in case of Reactor. |
| RxJava 2 may be compatible with and may not enter with any single value might get failed. | The reactor is compatible with and uses Mono<T> for any asynchronous call for value, further giving optional<T> |
| Rxjava2 supports for either a single<T> which either completely emits one item or not even a single one. | The reactor does not support anyone either to fetch one item or neither of them. |
| RxJava 2 separates both the observable and flowable type where the source cannot be controlled, whereas type-safe is observable. | The reactor, on the other hand, contains both types of streams, which get represented using Flux, representing any error related to backtrack pressure. |
Conclusion
Both RxJava and Reactor have their own pros and cons in terms of APIs and streaming paradigm. It all depends on the requirement and choice of tool that needs to perform the action with integration. API also contains very little difference between both but has given a lot of edge to developers, especially android developers, for RxJava to implement.
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