LDAP SDK for Java

Product Information
Advantages of the LDAP SDK

A Comparison of LDAP SDK Functionality

This page provides a basic comparison of the capabilities included in JNDI, the Netscape Directory SDK for Java, and the UnboundID LDAP SDK for Java.

Description	JNDI	Netscape SDK	UnboundID SDK
Full support for the core LDAPv3 protocol	Yes	Yes	Yes
Uses LDAPv3 by default	Yes	No	Yes
Ease of use	Poor	Moderate	Excellent
Support for Java SE 5 features	Generics	None	Generics Varargs Enumerations Concurrency Annotations
Supported standards-based controls	3	7	28
Supported standards-based extended operations	1	0	7
Supported SASL mechanisms	5	1	6
Direct support for asynchronous operations	No	Yes (via queue polling)	Yes (via notification interface)
Support for connection pooling	Basic	Basic	Enhanced
Multiple connection pools in the same JVM	No	Yes	Yes
Support for failover between servers	None	Basic	Enhanced
Support for load balancing across servers	No	No	Yes
Reusable request objects	No	No	Yes
Disconnect notification	No	No	Yes
Access to response data for successful operations	Response controls (not threadsafe)	Response controls (not threadsafe)	Result code Diagnostic message Matched DN Referral URLs Response controls (threadsafe)
Access to response data for failed operations	Diagnostic message Matched DN Referral URLs Response controls (not threadsafe)	Result code Diagnostic message Matched DN Referral URLs Response controls (not threadsafe)	Result code Diagnostic message Matched DN Referral URLs Response controls (threadsafe)
Client-side entry sorting	None	Basic	Enhanced
Client-side filter evaluation	No	No	Yes
Provided example tools	0	3	9

See the Improved Security Functionality page for additional information.

Description	JNDI	Netscape SDK	UnboundID SDK
Secure communication with SSL	Basic	Basic	Enhanced
Secure communication with StartTLS	Basic	None	Enhanced
Prevent simple binds with a DN but no password	No	No	Yes
Methods for retrieving the client identity	None	None	Authorization identity controls "Who Am I?" extended operation Get authorization entry control (Commercial Edition only)
Support for the proxied authorization control	None	V1 Only	V1 and V2
Supported password policy controls	None	Password expired Password expiring	Password expired Password expiring Password policy (Commercial Edition only) Account usability (Commercial Edition only)
Supported password policy extended operations	None	None	Password modify Password policy state (Commercial Edition only)
Support for atomic operations	None	None	Increment modify extension Read entry controls Assertion control LDAP transactions Batched transactions (Commercial Edition only) Interactive transactions (Commercial Edition only)
Search filter construction	Basic	None	Enhanced

See the Inclusion of Related APIs page for additional information.

Description	JNDI	Netscape SDK	UnboundID SDK
LDIF processing	None	Basic	Enhanced
Base64 processing	None	Basic	Enhanced
ASN.1 BER processing	None	Basic	Enhanced
Root DSE parsing	No	No	Yes
Schema parsing	Basic	Basic	Enhanced
Changelog entry parsing	No	No	Yes
LDAP Object Persistence	None	None	Enhanced
LDAP Communication Decoding	None	Limited	Enhanced
Command line argument parsing	None	Basic	Enhanced
Simple LDAP-enabled command-line tool development	No	No	Yes

Description	JNDI	Netscape SDK	UnboundID SDK
Commercial support available	Yes	No	Yes
Full localization support	No	No	Yes
Testing support classes	None	None	In-Memory Directory Server, LDAPTestUtils class
Availability of debug information	Basic (using JDK logging)	Basic (debug written to standard out, trace written to a custom handler)	Enhanced (using JDK logging)

LDAP SDK for Java

A fast, powerful, user-friendly, and completely free Java API for communicating with LDAP directory servers.

Download now »