What is different between poi.jar and jxl jar file for reading excel sheet data in java and which one suggested to use ?

Question

Both poi and jxl jar are performing same actions in reading excel sheet, which one is better to use and why ?

Answer 1

In case of Reading the Excel file,

The most important difference is that JXL does not support xlsx file format. Wheres POI supports old xls and the xlsx format as well.

In case of creating the Excel file,
POI has rich API that supports conditional formatting, rich text formatting, Chart creation and many more other features.

POI has the more extensive set of documentation and JXL is not very much maintained and updated, where POI is maintained very well.

So, my vote goes to Apache POI library.

Comments

Yes, @Mayur sir, is correct it.
The most significant difference is that Java JXL does not support the Excel 2007+ ".xlsx" format; it only supports the old BIFF (binary) ".xls" format. Apache POI supports both with a common design.