Design Patterns: Abstract Factory vs Factory Method

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Hope this helps. It describes the various types of factories. I used the Head First Design Patterns book as my reference. I used yuml.me to diagram.

Static Factory

Is a class with a Static Method to product various sub types of Product.

Static Factory

Simple Factory

Is a class that can produce various sub types of Product. (It is better than the Static Factory. When new types are added the base Product class does not need to be changed only the Simple Factory Class)

Simple Factoryt

Factory Method

Contains one method to produce one type of product related to its type. (It is better than a Simple Factory because the type is deferred to a sub-class.)

Factory Method

Abstract Factory

Produces a Family of Types that are related. It is noticeably different than a Factory Method as it has more than one method of types it produces. (This is complicated refer to next diagram for better real-life example).

Abstract Factory

Example From The .NET Framework

DbFactoriesProvider is a Simple Factory as it has no sub-types. The DbFactoryProvider is an abstract factory as it can create various related database objects such as connection and command objects.

Abstract Factory From .NET Framework
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