X vs Y?

In interviews, many questions are asked as comparisons:

• Why X over Y?
• When to use X instead of Y?
• What are the trade-offs?

This section captures clear, concise, and interview-ready differences.

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🔹 String vs StringBuilder vs StringBuffer

🔹 == vs equals()

🔹 final vs finally vs finalize

🔹 REST vs SOAP

🔹 Monolith vs Microservices

🔹 @Component vs @Service vs @Repository

🔹 @Controller vs @RestController

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Table of contents

• Exceptions
• Collections
• Streams
• String
• Heap vs Stack
• equals() vs hashCode()