Networking Component

[Jishaxe]

What do you think is better?

[theo]

I think you can't answer this by a simple poll.
lNet is well integrated with Lazarus and should work on most platforms afaik.
Afaik it's also "event driven" (I know only little about it).

Synapse is very well tested (many years for Delphi and Kylix) and works on Windows and Unices without problems. There are some issues with OSX and WinCE afaik.
Synapse is more for the programmer who whants to know what's really happening.
It has some "convenience" functions but beyond that, it's leaving decisions about when to use threads etc. up to you.

I for one would use lNet or Indy for "quick and dirty" programming.
I would always choose Synapse for writing a performant/scalable server.

[Jishaxe]

Thanks for your explanation.

[OpenLieroXor]

lNet is much easier to use because of event handlers, built-in threading, and LCL components implementing lots of operations on sockets. However, it has very basic functionality and, for me, it's usable only for very simple communication. Synapse is the most powerful network library, which allows you to take much better control over your sockets, but it's harder to use - you need to know a bit how the network sockets work, and you need to code in your own a lot of things done automatically by lNet, like threading, etc. When I began network programming with Delphi, I used TServerSocket and TClientSocket components, so when I moved to Lazarus I began to use lNet, because it was very similar to my old components. But later such 'all-in-one' network components weren't functional enough for me, so I learned Synapse. Now I use Synapse in every project.

[marcov]

Well, Indy10 obviously.

[Leledumbo]

LNet for me. I don't want to know what a library does to do what I want. In fact, this is why a library is created so you can focus on your application only.

[JD]

Indy 10 even though there are reports that it has some problems in Linux & MacOS. It has all the protocols one could possible want.

The proof for me is the fact that it is bundled with Delphi 2010.

[marcov]

Indy 10 even though there are reports that it has some problems in Linux & MacOS.

I tested some versions on Linux and OS X (PPC even) and it worked for me. (mostly ftp client, pop/smtp and httpclient).

The reports were not awfully detailed, and I have no time to hunt this down myself.

That said, I know the 64-bit side of things didn't receive that much testing, and the recent Tiburon branch broke the designtime packages.

[Jishaxe]

Indy? I thought that was only for Delphi...

[ahmetnurideniz]

is indy free for lazarus?

[typo]

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Indy_with_Lazarus