Analysis
Compare patterns
Evaluate design patterns side by side across intent, tradeoffs, languages, and integration fit.
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Analysis
Pattern comparison
Reviewing 3 patterns.
| Criteria | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Basics | |||
| Category | structural | creational | behavioral |
| Summary | Compose objects into tree structures to represent part-whole hierarchies and let clients work with individual and composite objects through the same interface. | — | — |
| Intent | Compose objects into tree structures to represent part-whole hierarchies and let clients work with individual and composite objects through the same interface. | Specify the kinds of objects to create using a prototypical instance, and create new objects by cloning that prototype. | Encapsulate a family of algorithms or behaviors behind a common contract so they can be selected and swapped cleanly. |
| Decision factors | |||
| Problem | A system needs to treat individual objects and groups of objects uniformly, but the hierarchy becomes difficult to manage with separate code paths. | Creating new objects from scratch can be expensive or repetitive when the system needs many similar variants. | A system needs to switch between interchangeable behaviors without hardcoding branching logic everywhere. |
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| Integration notes | Composite is useful when a hierarchy of nested objects should expose a common interface, such as files and folders, menus and submenus, org charts, widget trees, or scene graphs. | Prototype is useful when object creation is expensive, when many near-identical objects are needed, or when cloning preconfigured templates is simpler than rebuilding them. | Strategies can cross codebases through shared contracts, API selection rules, or runtime configuration. |