Java/Grails library for Twitter: JTwitter, Twitter4J or Grails plugin?

Question

I'm looking to integrate a new app (to be built, probably in Grails) with Twitter and found there are (at least) 3 libraries to use. JTwitter, Twitter4J and a Grails plugin.

Any opinions on the pros and cons of each are appreciated.

I'll mark this as a community wiki as there's no single answer expected.

Answer 1

The grails plugin uses JTwitter. To me Twitter4j looks better, because:

• it looks more serious - they provide the git repository, javadoc, support matrix. JTwitter don't.
• At the bottom of the JTwitter page it says that you must include a backlink if you use it.

Answer 2

As the main developer of JTwitter I'm somewhat biased, but here's my 2 cents:

• There's not much in it either way.
• Twitter4j does have a nicer looking website (but their code examples use basic auth and are out of date).
• Twitter4J currently covers a bit more of the Twitter API, namely streaming.
• JTwitter is cleaner and simpler - it uses a lot less classes to do the same thing.
• JTwitter has better exception handling and some robustness features for when Twitter is flaky.