I’m searching for an open source  C++ framework for building webservices for a year. And now I was asked which one I would prefer (see Question at StackOverflow).

My favorites (all OpenSource and platform independent – not ordered) are currently:

GSOAPhttp://www.cs.fsu.edu/~engelen/soap.html

pros:

  • proven, reliable, very fast
  • big documentation, many support
  • still maintained – releases every 3-6 months

contras:

  • WSDL/client generators are not free
  • programming and embedding into existing apps isn’t so easy
  • seems to be more C than C++

Apache AXIS C++http://ws.apache.org/axis/cpp/index.html

pros:

  • proven, already in use in big projects
  • (nearly) good documentation
  • up to date, maintenance is ensured by Apache Foundation
  • better/nicer C++ API

contras:

  • heavy weight SDK / too many functionality for me
  • not easy to implement it / many work to embed it into own app
  • maybe not as fast and bigger footprint as GSOAP

Staffhttp://code.google.com/p/staff/

pros:

  • very small footprint
  • easy and fast to integrate

contras:

  • future maintenance is not clear / it’s (only) a Google summer of code project
  • very early stage
  • support party only in cyrillic

Conclusion

If I have to decide for a framework right now, I would take Apache AXIS – it’s proven and reliable and thus ready for productive use. Further it’s future maintenance is guaranteed by the Apache Foundation and I’m free to uase, modify and integrate AXIS as I want – even for my commercial applications.

I hope that helped a little bit 🙂

C++ Web Service Frameworks