Most Commonly Known Collections
ArrayList YES YES NO YES YES NO NO NO
* Default choice of List implementation
* To store a bunch of things
* Repetitions matters
* Insertion order matters
* Best implementation in case of huge lists which are read intensive
(elements are accessed more frequently than inserted deleted)
HashMap NO YES YES NO YES NO NO NO
* Default choice of Map implementation
* Majorly used for simple in-memory caching purpose.
Vector YES YES NO YES YES YES NO NO
* Historical implementation of List
* A good choice for thread-safe implementation
Hashtable NO YES YES NO NO YES NO NO
* Similar to HashMap
* Do not allow null values or keys
* Entire map is locked for thread safety
Most Talked About Collections
HashSet NO YES NO NO YES NO NO NO
* To store bunch of things
* A very nice alternative for ArrayList if
** Do not want repetitions
** Ordering does not matter
TreeSet YES YES NO NO NO NO NO NO
* To store bunch of things in sorted order
* A very nice alternative for ArrayList if
** Do not want repetitions
** Sorted order
LinkedList YES NO NO YES YES NO NO NO
* Sequential Access
* Faster adding and deleting of elements
* Slightly more memory than ArrayList
* Add/Remove elements from both ends of the queue
* Best alternative in case of huge lists which are more write intensive
(elements added / deleted are more frequent than reading elements)
ArrayDeque YES YES NO YES NO NO NO NO
* Random Access
* Faster searching and retrieval of elements
* Add/Remove elements from both ends of the queue
* Best alternative in case of huge lists which are more read intensive
Stack YES NO NO YES YES YES NO NO
* Similar to a Vector
* Last-In-First-Out implementation
TreeMap YES YES YES NO NO NO NO NO * A very nice alternative for HashMap if sorted keys are important
Special Purpose Collections
WeakHashMap NO YES YES NO YES NO NO NO
* The keys that are not referenced will automatically become eligible for
garbage collection
* Usually used for advanced caching techniques to store huge data and
want to conserve memory
Arrays YES YES NO YES YES NO NO YES
* A Utility class provided to manipulate arrays
** Searching
** Sorting
** Converting to other Collection types such as a List
Properties NO YES YES NO NO YES NO NO
* Properties are exactly same as the Hashtable
* Keys and Values are String
* Can be loaded from a input stream
* Usually used to store application properties and configurations
Thread Safe Collections
CopyOnWriteArrayList YES YES NO YES YES YES NO NO
* A thread safe variant of ArrayList
* Best use for
** Small lists which are read intensive
** requires thread-safety
ConcurrentHashMap NO YES YES NO NO YES NO NO
* A thread safe variant of Hashtable
* Best use for
** requires thread-safety
** Better performance at high load due to a better locking mechanism
ConcurrentSkipListMap YES YES YES NO NO YES NO NO
* A thread safe variant of TreeMap
* Best use for
** requires thread-safety
ConcurrentSkipListSet YES NO NO NO NO YES NO NO
* A thread safe variant of TreeSet
* Best use for
** Do not want repetitions
** Sorted order
** Requires thread-safety
CopyOnWriteArraySet YES YES NO NO YES YES NO NO
* A thread-safe implementation of a Set
* Best use for
** Small lists which are read intensive
** requires thread-safety
** Do not want repetitions
ConcurrentLinkedQueue YES NO NO YES NO YES NO NO
* A thread-safe variant of PriorityQueue
* Best use for
** Small lists
** No random access
** requires thread-safety
ConcurrentLinkedDeque YES NO NO YES NO YES NO NO
"* A thread-safe variant of LinkedList
* Best use for
** Small lists
** No random access
** Insertions, retrieval on both sides of the queue
** requires thread-safety"
Blocking Collections
ArrayBlockingQueue YES NO NO YES NO YES YES YES
* Best use for Producer - Consumer type of scenarios with
** Lower capacity bound
** Predictable capacity
* Has a bounded buffer. Space would be allocated during object creation
LinkedBlockingQueue YES NO NO YES NO YES YES YES
* Best use for Producer - Consumer type of scenarios with
** Large capacity bound
** Unpredictable capacity
* Upper bound is optional
LinkedTransferQueue YES NO NO YES NO YES YES YES
* Can be used in situations where the producers should wait for
consumer to receive elements. e.g. Message Passing
PriorityBlockingQueue YES NO NO YES NO YES YES NO
"* Best use for Producer - Consumer type of scenarios with
** Large capacity bound
** Unpredictable capacity
** Consumer needs elements in sorted order
LinkedBlockingDeque YES NO NO YES NO YES YES YES
* A Deque implementation of LinkedBlockingQueue
** Can add elements at both head and tail
SynchronousQueue YES NO NO YES NO YES YES NO
* Both producer and consumer threads will have to wait for a handoff to
occur.
* If there is no consumer waiting. The element is not added to the
collection.
DelayQueue YES NO NO YES NO YES YES NO
* Similar to a normal LinkedBlockingQueue
* Elements are implementations of Delayed interface
* Consumer will be able to get the element only when it's delay has
expired
Source: http://www.janeve.me/articles/which-java-collection-to-use
Ordering
Random
Access
Key-Value
Pairs
Allows
Duplicates
Allows Null
Values
Thread Safe
Blocking
Operations
Upper
Bounds Usage Scenarios
