Question

I have to generate a WS Client and I can’t decide which plugin to use. Until now my options are: jaxb2-maven-plugin, axistools-maven-plugin and jaxws-maven-plugin.

Answer 1

I have to generate a WS Client and I can’t decide wich plugin to use. Until now my options are: jaxb2-maven-plugin, axistools-maven-plugin and jaxws-maven-plugin.

First, the jaxb2-maven-plugin is not really intended to generate WS clients. ELIMINATED.

Second, personally I wouldn’t use Axis even for client development only so I won’t recommend using the axistools-maven-plugin. ELIMINATED.

This leaves us with the JAX-WS RI and the Apache CXF stacks, and their respective Maven plugins: the JAX-WS Maven Plugin (instructions to use the JAX-WS Maven Plugin can be found on the Usage page) and the cxf-codegen-plugin.

Regarding the pros and cons, I would summarize them like this:

• JAX-WS RI is included in Java 6, but the documentation is more “rough” (although you’ll find plenty of tutorials about JAX-WS RI too).
• Apache CXF is better documentated and provide more flexibility if you want to go beyond the spec.

At the end, both choices are decent so I suggest to browse the links a bit and to make your own opinion.