pros-n-cons vs Camel

[jmaken]

I am in the process of refactoring a Spring-based app to provide better integration capabilities, primarily in the routing (by content in the actual EDI data stream) area.

I've just downloaded the latest from the svn repo and am starting to review the code and examples. I'm doing the same with the Camel project.

While I know much is dependent upon my specific app, I'm interested in feedback on what you believe are the key pros and cons of each solution.

For example, what do you see as the key value-add of spring-integration over Camel for existing Spring applications? I'm looking for neither a Spring sales pitch -- already happily SOLD -- nor a bashfest, but perspectives based on actual analysis/usage of one or the other.

thanks in advance...

jon

[ryandaum]

I'm interested in the same thing, and perhaps also some discussion of Mule. I have an objection to the Mule license, and the lack of documentation (so far) of Mule 2.0, but other than that I'm trying to grasp how Spring Integration compares to it, and to Camel.

[jstrachan]

I am in the process of refactoring a Spring-based app to provide better integration capabilities, primarily in the routing (by content in the actual EDI data stream) area.

I've just downloaded the latest from the svn repo and am starting to review the code and examples. I'm doing the same with the Camel project.

While I know much is dependent upon my specific app, I'm interested in feedback on what you believe are the key pros and cons of each solution.

For example, what do you see as the key value-add of spring-integration over Camel for existing Spring applications? I'm looking for neither a Spring sales pitch -- already happily SOLD -- nor a bashfest, but perspectives based on actual analysis/usage of one or the other.

Integration is a hard and very complex area. I think both Camel and Spring Integration tackle integration problems from different perspectives; SI has focussed more on beans with EIP annotations; Camel has focussed more on writing routing rules in Java, XML or now Scala together with a complete EIP catalogue and a ton of components with a vibrant open source community behind them.

I don't see it as an either or; both have their strengths so users can use one or the other or both together quite easily.

For example you can now easily mix and match Camel and Spring Integration endpoints and hopefully over time closer integration will come from SI and Camel.