Question

I need XSLT 2.0 processor tool for use in .net 4.0.
I found out that XSLT 2.0 is not supported by .net. Alternatives are 3rd party engines like Saxon 9.x or XQSharp. I need XSLT 2.0 support for a commercial production environment, where performance is very important. Questions:

1. Saxon 9.x or XQSharp, which one do i have to choose?
2. What are the pro’s and con’s of the two products?
3. Are there another alternatives?
4. What about AltovaXML compared to Saxon 9.x or XQSharp?

Answer 1

In the last weeks I used XQSharp, Saxon 9.x and AltovaXml to rewrite my program from using Microsoft XSLT1 engine. Here my experiences:

AltovaXml

• It is free (but free version is limited and doesn’t come with source).
• The website is ok, so that you can find what you need
• The api is simple an easy to set up
• Has api for many different languages
• It uses COM, in other words, requires native code interop
• It is the slowest of the engines that I used

XQSharp

• .NET friendly
• Throws good exceptions with good description
• Faster then AltovaXml
• It is not free and no source is provided

Saxon 9.x

• Not friendly website, difficult to find the things you search
• Created by Michael Kay (the editor of the W3C specification of the XSLT 2.0 language)
• Fastest of the XSLT2 engines that I used
• There’s a limited open source edition, schema-aware and streaming come with non-free editions
• Based on Java, but comes with a packaged IKVM port to .NET

For my specific XML and XSLT (XSLT1) translation performance comparison:

1. 0,02 s Microsoft XSLT1 engine
2. 0,45 s Saxon 9.x
3. 0.60 s XQSharp (with OptimizationLevel.None)
4. 0.90 s XQSharp (default setting)
5. 1,20 s AltovaXml