java – Google Guava vs. Apache Commons

I was looking for a bidirectional map implementation in Java and came across these two libraries:

>Google guava (formerly "Google collections") > Apache common collections

Both are free, with the bi-directional map implementation I'm looking for (bidimap in Apache, bimap in Google), almost the same size (APACHE 493 KB, Google 499 KB) [edit: no longer true!] And it seems to be very similar to me in all aspects

Which one should I choose and why? Are there other equivalent alternatives (must be free and have at least two-way mapping)? I'm using the latest Java se, so I don't need to artificially restrict Java 5 or something like that

Solution

In my opinion, a better choice is guava (formerly known as Google Collection):

>It is more modern (generic) > it fully complies with the requirements of the collections API > it actively maintains > cachebuilder. Its predecessor mapmaker is great

Apache common collections is also a good library, but it has failed to provide a version that supports generics for a long time (in my opinion, this is the main disadvantage of the collection API) and usually seems to be maintaining / not doing the - too much work on it mode. Recently, common collections has gained some momentum again, but it has caught up with it

If download size / memory footprint / code size is a problem, Apache commons collections may be a better candidate because it is a common dependency of other libraries Therefore, using it in your own code can also be done without adding any other dependencies Editor: this special "advantage" has now been partially overturned because many new libraries actually rely on guava rather than Apache common collections