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It’s almost impossible to keep up with all the fractal-like Java standards related to web services. As fast as each can be learned, Sun invents another, and a dozen open source implementations appear. For my own sanity I tried to create a rough map of some of them. I tried to avoid making recommendations; my main objective was to sketch out how they fit together. I also focused on the open source options; there are many good commercial implementations of all of these too.

Javolution and Woodstox are the winners of the StAX parsers. Woodstox has the advantage of being JSR 173 conforming StAX parser, which makes it usable for more applications.

The Streaming API for XML (StAX) is the latest standard for processing XML in the Javaâ„¢ language. As a stream-oriented approach, it often proves a better alternative to other methods, such as DOM and SAX, both in terms of performance and usability

JSR 173 defines a pull streaming model, StAX (short for "Streaming API for XML"), for processing XML documents. In this model, unlike in SAX, the client can start, proceed, pause, and resume the parsing process. The client has complete control.