ArrayList vs. Vectors in Java if thread safety isn't a concern

Question

Is there really that much of a difference between the performance of Vector and ArrayList? Is it good practice to use ArrayLists at all times when

Answer 1

If thread safety is not an issue, ArrayList will be faster as it does not have to synchronize. Although, you should always declare your variable as a List so that the implementation can be changed later as needed.

I prefer to handle my synchronization explicitly because a lot of operations require multiple calls. For example:

if (!myList.isEmpty()) { 
    myList.get(0);
}

should be:

synchronized (myList) {
   if (!myList.isEmpty()) { 
       myList.get(0);
   }
}