# LightXML vs EzXML
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091
**Category:** General Usage
**Created:** [May 13, 2021, 3:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091 "2021-05-13T15:17:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@gitboy16](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/gitboy16)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 3:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/1 "2021-05-13T15:17:33Z")
Hi,
I have started playing with LightXML and EzXML.
I found EzXML to be easier to use and better documented than LightXML. I am still struggling to do some basic stuff wiyh LightXML. I wanted to have the view of the community on which package I should use with regards to long term solution and maintainability.
Thank you
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### Author:  [@CameronBieganek](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/CameronBieganek)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 5:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/2 "2021-05-13T17:42:59Z")
I like EzXML, though it hasn’t received much maintenance in a while. However, the [EzXML repository](https://github.com/JuliaIO/EzXML.jl) was recently transferred to the JuliaIO Github group, so it should be easier to make updates for anyone who is interested in contributing.
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### Author:  [@GunnarFarneback](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/GunnarFarneback)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/3 "2021-05-13T17:53:34Z")
I have no insights about the relative merits since I’ve never used EzXML but if you use LightXML you must be careful with memory management of XML objects. Cf [Use a finalizer instead of manual memory management · Issue #93 · JuliaIO/LightXML.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaIO/LightXML.jl/issues/93).
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### Author:  [@jw3126](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jw3126)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 9:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/4 "2021-05-13T21:18:27Z")
If you want something super simple and intuitive I recommend [GitHub - JuliaCloud/XMLDict.jl: XMLDict implements a simple Associative interface for XML documents.](https://github.com/JuliaCloud/XMLDict.jl)
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### Author:  [@gitboy16](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/gitboy16)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 9:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/5 "2021-05-13T21:32:31Z")
Seems XMLDict.jl is build on top of EzXML. For me, usually, the less dependencies the better…
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### Author:  [@jw3126](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jw3126)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 9:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/6 "2021-05-13T21:52:27Z")
I think actually XMLDict makes you less dependent, than directly using EzXML. Because it is only 300loc and defines a very nice interface, with an EzXML backend that could easily be switched. If one directly depends on EzXML and that package disappears for some reason, I expect a greater pain.
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### Author:  [@D\_A](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/D_A)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 10:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/7 "2021-05-13T22:31:17Z")
I usually use both: EzXML to read and extract (it includes XPath paths) and LightXML to generate (because there is a [bug](https://github.com/JuliaIO/EzXML.jl/issues/138) with EzXML for adjacent text nodes, and my skills are too limited to fix it myself).
For XSL transformations, I use a third party executable.
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### Author:  [@henry2004y](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/henry2004y)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2021, 10:48am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/lightxml-vs-ezxml/61091/8 "2021-09-14T10:48:13Z")
I made some comparisons within my package to see the differences. The results are shown [here](https://github.com/henry2004y/Vlasiator.jl/issues/29). My intermediate observations are:
1. LightXML is faster to compile.
2. EzXML consumes less memory.
3. EzXML is slightly faster in my small test, but slightly slower in my pkg benchmarks.
I need to look at my codes more carefully but so far I don’t see a big advantage by using either one except the memory deallocation issue mentioned above.