What's the difference in feature layer ( ArcGIS Server) vs Feature Layer- hosted ( Portal for ArcGIS )

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05-08-2018 01:20 PM
Arturo_FranciscoAcosta_Bazán
Occasional Contributor

Is there any difference between having a service managed by Portal and another made from ArcGIS Server ?

It is already known that for one ArcGIS Data Store ( hosted Feature Layer ) is required and the other one is about DBMS ( feature layer) , the query is referred to when to use one instead of the other

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JonathanQuinn
Esri Notable Contributor

Functionally, there is no difference. A feature layer from a hosted feature service and one from a traditional map service behave largely the same. There are a few differences in other aspects, like where you manage capabilities, but in general, a query is the same through either resource.

Another difference is that a hosted feature service is "lightweight", meaning it doesn't spin up a SOC process. A traditional map service, (with feature access or not), will spin up a SOC process, thus using resources on the machine. You can scale up to thousands of hosted feature services, but you'll quickly hit a limit with traditional map services.

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JonathanQuinn
Esri Notable Contributor

Functionally, there is no difference. A feature layer from a hosted feature service and one from a traditional map service behave largely the same. There are a few differences in other aspects, like where you manage capabilities, but in general, a query is the same through either resource.

Another difference is that a hosted feature service is "lightweight", meaning it doesn't spin up a SOC process. A traditional map service, (with feature access or not), will spin up a SOC process, thus using resources on the machine. You can scale up to thousands of hosted feature services, but you'll quickly hit a limit with traditional map services.

GirishYadav1
New Contributor III

Couple more differences are:

1. Data storage: Hosted feature layer stores the data in ArcGIS Datastore. Which is kind of a "blackbox". All the interactions with the data is through Hosted Feature web service. Whereas, traditional services can reference feature classes from registered geodatabase. Which you can directly access and manage. Sometimes its good, sometimes not so good.

2. Service Extensibility: In my knowledge, as of now, you can not deploy custom SOEs & SOIs for Hosted Feature service. Whereas, in Traditional Feature Services, you can customize the behavior of the services which in my view is very big plus.  

Overall, Hosted Feature services are very lightweight and robust. And Traditional Feature services are more customizable. I hope, in future we can build SOEs/SOIs for the Hosted Feature Services as well...