What are the differences between a HashMap and a Hashtable in Java?

java collections hashmap hashtable
dmanxiii picture dmanxiii · Sep 2, 2008 · Viewed 1.6M times · Source

What are the differences between a HashMap and a Hashtable in Java?

Which is more efficient for non-threaded applications?

Answer

Josh Brown picture Josh Brown · Sep 3, 2008

There are several differences between HashMap and Hashtable in Java:

  1. Hashtable is synchronized, whereas HashMap is not. This makes HashMap better for non-threaded applications, as unsynchronized Objects typically perform better than synchronized ones.

  2. Hashtable does not allow null keys or values. HashMap allows one null key and any number of null values.

  3. One of HashMap's subclasses is LinkedHashMap, so in the event that you'd want predictable iteration order (which is insertion order by default), you could easily swap out the HashMap for a LinkedHashMap. This wouldn't be as easy if you were using Hashtable.

Since synchronization is not an issue for you, I'd recommend HashMap. If synchronization becomes an issue, you may also look at ConcurrentHashMap.

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