There are some differences between BeanFactoy and ApplicationContext in Spring as follows:
| ApplicationContext | BeanFactory |
| 1 Here we can have more than one config files possible. | 1 In this only one config file or .xml file. |
|
2 Application contexts can publish events to beans that are registered as listeners |
2 Doesn’t support. |
| 3 Support internationalization (I18N) messages. | 3 It’s not. |
| 4 Support application life-cycle events, and validation. | 4 Doesn’t support. |
| 5 Support many enterprise services such JNDI access, EJB integration, remoting | 5 Doesn’t support. |
| 6 Application contexts provide a generic way to load file resources, such as images. | 6 It's not. |
| 7 Application contexts provide a means for resolving text messages. | 7 It's not. |
| 8 ResourceLoader support: Spring’s Resource interface
us a flexible generic abstraction for handling low-level resources. An
application context itself is a ResourceLoader, Hence provides an
application with access to deployment-specific Resource instances. |
8 It's not. |