How do the major C DI IoC frameworks compare

Question

At the risk of stepping into holy war territory  What are the strengths and weaknesses of these popular DI IoC frameworks  and could one easily be considered the best        Ninject Unity  Castle Windsor Autofac StructureMap    Are there any other DI IoC Frameworks for C  that I haven t listed here   In context of my use case  I m building a client WPF app  and a WCF SQL services infrastructure  ease of use  especially in terms of clear and concise syntax   consistent documentation  good community support and performance are all important factors in my choice   Update   The resources and duplicate questions cited appear to be out of date  can someone with knowledge of all these frameworks come forward and provide some real insight   I realise that most opinion on this subject is likely to be biased  but I am hoping that someone has taken the time to study all these frameworks and have at least a generally objective comparison   I am quite willing to make my own investigations if this hasn t been done before  but I assumed this was something at least a few people had done already   Second Update   If you do have experience with more than one DI IoC container  please rank and summarise the pros and cons of those  thank you  This isn t an exercise in discovering all the obscure little containers that people have made  I m looking for comparisons between the popular  and active  frameworks

User · Answer

Well  after looking around the best comparison I ve found so far is    http   www sturmnet org blog 2010 03 04 poll-ioc-containers-for-net http   www sturmnet org blog 2010 03 04 poll-results-ioc-containers-for-net   It was a poll taken in March 2010   One point of interest to me is that people who ve used a DI IoC Framework and liked disliked it  StructureMap appears to come out on top   Also from the poll  it seems that Castle Windsor and StructureMap seem to be most highly favoured   Interestingly  Unity and Spring Net seem to be the popular options which are most generally disliked   I was considering Unity out of laziness  and Microsoft badge support   but I ll be looking more closely at Castle Windsor and StructureMap now    Of course this probably     doesn t apply to Unity 2 0 which was released in May 2010    Hopefully someone else can provide a comparison based on direct experience

User · Answer

Disclaimer  As of early 2015  there is a great comparison of IoC Container features from Jimmy Bogard  here is a summary   Compared Containers    Autofac  Ninject Simple Injector StructureMap Unity Windsor   The scenario is this  I have an interface  IMediator  in which I can send a single request response or a notification to multiple recipients   public interface IMediator         TResponse Send lt TResponse gt  IRequest lt TResponse gt  request        Task lt TResponse gt  SendAsync lt TResponse gt  IAsyncRequest lt TResponse gt  request        void Publish lt TNotification gt  TNotification notification          where TNotification   INotification       Task PublishAsync lt TNotification gt  TNotification notification          where TNotification   IAsyncNotification       I then created a base set of requests responses notifications   public class Ping   IRequest lt Pong gt        public string Message   get  set      public class Pong       public string Message   get  set      public class PingAsync   IAsyncRequest lt Pong gt        public string Message   get  set      public class Pinged   INotification     public class PingedAsync   IAsyncNotification       I was interested in looking at a few things with regards to container support for generics    Setup for open generics  registering IRequestHandler lt    easily  Setup for multiple registrations of open generics  two or more INotificationHandlers    Setup for generic variance  registering handlers for base INotification creating request pipelines  My handlers are pretty straightforward  they just output to console   public class PingHandler   IRequestHandler lt Ping  Pong gt       Impl      public class PingAsyncHandler   IAsyncRequestHandler lt PingAsync  Pong gt       Impl       public class PingedHandler   INotificationHandler lt Pinged gt       Impl      public class PingedAlsoHandler   INotificationHandler lt Pinged gt       Impl      public class GenericHandler   INotificationHandler lt INotification gt       Impl       public class PingedAsyncHandler   IAsyncNotificationHandler lt PingedAsync gt       Impl      public class PingedAlsoAsyncHandler   IAsyncNotificationHandler lt PingedAsync gt       Impl        Autofac  var builder   new ContainerBuilder    builder RegisterSource new ContravariantRegistrationSource     builder RegisterAssemblyTypes typeof  IMediator  Assembly  AsImplementedInterfaces    builder RegisterAssemblyTypes typeof  Ping  Assembly  AsImplementedInterfaces       Open generics  yes  implicitly Multiple open generics  yes  implicitly Generic contravariance  yes  explicitly   Ninject  var kernel   new StandardKernel    kernel Components Add lt IBindingResolver  ContravariantBindingResolver gt     kernel Bind scan   gt  scan FromAssemblyContaining lt IMediator gt         SelectAllClasses        BindDefaultInterface     kernel Bind scan   gt  scan FromAssemblyContaining lt Ping gt         SelectAllClasses        BindAllInterfaces     kernel Bind lt TextWriter gt    ToConstant Console Out      Open generics  yes  implicitly Multiple open generics  yes  implicitly Generic contravariance  yes  with user-built extensions   Simple Injector  var container   new Container    var assemblies   GetAssemblies   ToArray    container Register lt IMediator  Mediator gt     container Register typeof IRequestHandler lt   gt    assemblies   container Register typeof IAsyncRequestHandler lt   gt    assemblies   container RegisterCollection typeof INotificationHandler lt  gt    assemblies   container RegisterCollection typeof IAsyncNotificationHandler lt  gt    assemblies      Open generics  yes  explicitly Multiple open generics  yes  explicitly Generic contravariance  yes  implicitly  with update 3 0    StructureMap  var container   new Container cfg   gt        cfg Scan scanner   gt                scanner AssemblyContainingType lt Ping gt             scanner AssemblyContainingType lt IMediator gt             scanner WithDefaultConventions            scanner AddAllTypesOf typeof IRequestHandler lt   gt             scanner AddAllTypesOf typeof IAsyncRequestHandler lt   gt             scanner AddAllTypesOf typeof INotificationHandler lt  gt             scanner AddAllTypesOf typeof IAsyncNotificationHandler lt  gt                    Open generics  yes  explicitly Multiple open generics  yes  explicitly Generic contravariance  yes  implicitly   Unity  container RegisterTypes AllClasses FromAssemblies typeof Ping  Assembly      WithMappings FromAllInterfaces     GetName     GetLifetimeManager       later down     static bool IsNotificationHandler Type type        return type GetInterfaces   Any x   gt  x IsGenericType  amp  amp   x GetGenericTypeDefinition      typeof INotificationHandler lt  gt      x GetGenericTypeDefinition      typeof IAsyncNotificationHandler lt  gt         static LifetimeManager GetLifetimeManager Type type        return IsNotificationHandler type    new ContainerControlledLifetimeManager     null     static string GetName Type type        return IsNotificationHandler type    string Format  HandlerFor    type Name    string Empty       Open generics  yes  implicitly Multiple open generics  yes  with user-built extension Generic contravariance  derp   Windsor  var container   new WindsorContainer    container Register Classes FromAssemblyContaining lt IMediator gt    Pick   WithServiceAllInterfaces     container Register Classes FromAssemblyContaining lt Ping gt    Pick   WithServiceAllInterfaces     container Kernel AddHandlersFilter new ContravariantFilter        Open generics  yes  implicitly Multiple open generics  yes  implicitly Generic contravariance  yes  with user-built extension

User · Answer

Just read this great  Net DI container comparison blog by Philip Mat   He does some thorough performance comparison tests on    Autofac  StructureMap  Ninject Unity Castle Windsor Spring Net   He recommends Autofac as it is small  fast  and easy to use     I agree   It appears that Unity and Ninject are the slowest in his tests

User · Answer

Actually there are tons of IoC frameworks  It seems like every programmer tries to write one at some point of their career  Maybe not to publish it  but to learn the inner workings   I personally prefer autofac since it s quite flexible and have syntax that suits me  although I really hate that all register methods are extension methods    Some other frameworks    https   simpleinjector org  http   microioc codeplex com  http   munq codeplex com  http   funq codeplex com

User · Answer

While a comprehensive answer to this question takes up hundreds of pages of my book  here s a quick comparison chart that I m still working on

User · Answer

See for a comparison of net-ioc-frameworks on google code including linfu and spring net that are not on your list while i write this text   I worked with spring net  It has many features  aop  libraries   docu       and there is a lot of experience with it in the dotnet and the java-world  The features are modularized so you donot have to take all features  The features are abstractions of common issues like databaseabstraction  loggingabstraction  however it is difficuilt to do and debug the IoC-configuration    From what i have read so far  If i had to chooseh for a small or medium project i would use ninject since ioc-configuration is done and debuggable in c   But i havent worked with it yet  for large modular system i would stay with spring net because of abstraction-libraries

User · Answer

I came across another performance comparison latest update 10 April 2014    It compares the following   AutoFac LightCore  site is German  LinFu Ninject Petite Simple Injector  the fastest of all contestants  Spring NET StructureMap Unity Windsor Hiro  Here is a quick summary from the post   Conclusion Ninject is definitely the slowest container  MEF  LinFu and Spring NET are faster than Ninject  but still pretty slow  AutoFac  Catel and Windsor come next  followed by StructureMap  Unity and LightCore  A disadvantage of Spring NET is  that can only be configured with XML  SimpleInjector  Hiro  Funq  Munq and Dynamo offer the best performance  they are extremely fast  Give them a try  Especially Simple Injector seems to be a good choice  It s very fast  has a good documentation and also supports advanced scenarios like interception and generic decorators   You can also try using the Common Service Selector Library and hopefully try multiple options and see what works best for you  Some informtion about Common Service Selector Library from the site   The library provides an abstraction over IoC containers and service locators  Using the library allows an application to indirectly access the capabilities without relying on hard references  The hope is that using this library  third-party applications and frameworks can begin to leverage IoC Service Location without tying themselves down to a specific implementation   Update 13 09 2011  Funq and Munq were added to the list of contestants  The charts were also updated  and Spring NET was removed due to it s poor performance  04 11 2011   quot added Simple Injector  the performance is the best of all contestants quot

[c#] How do the major C# DI/IoC frameworks compare?

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