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Building a Java SDK for the WeChat Official Account Platform

A comparison of existing Java WeChat SDKs and the design and implementation of a custom WeChat Official Account SDK.

Building a Java SDK for the WeChat Official Account Platform

A comparison of existing Java WeChat SDKs and the design and implementation of a custom WeChat Official Account SDK.

Victory

Introduction

Recently, I worked on projects involving WeChat Official Accounts and WeChat Third-Party Platforms. Although WeChat provides comprehensive HTTP-based APIs, it does not offer official SDKs for most programming languages.

This means developers must either:

  • Directly call raw HTTP APIs, or
  • Use (or build) a language-specific SDK

Since the WeChat Official Account platform has been around for years, there are already many Java-based SDK implementations. However, after evaluating several popular options, none fully met my requirements. As a result, I decided to build my own Java WeChat SDK.

This article compares existing SDKs and explains the motivation, design choices, and current progress of my own implementation.

Choosing a Java WeChat SDK

A detailed comparison of popular Java WeChat SDKs already exists: Java WeChat SDK Comparison

Based on my own requirements, I summarized the comparison as follows:

Featurejfinal-weixinweixin-java-toolsfastweixinweixin-popular
Simple implementation✔✘✔✔
Frequently updated✔✔✔✔
Entity abstractions✘✔✔✔
Minimal dependencies✘✘✔✔
Multi-account support✔✘✘✔
Code structure & extensibility✔✔✔✘

As shown above, no existing SDK fully satisfied all requirements.

The ideal SDK should be:

  • Easy to extend
  • Support multiple official accounts
  • Have minimal dependencies
  • Stay up-to-date with WeChat APIs
  • Provide a clean and maintainable structure

Given this gap, I chose to implement my own SDK.

Implementing a Custom WeChat SDK

Currently, the SDK covers most core WeChat Official Account APIs, organized according to the official documentation.

Implemented Features

  • Custom menus ✔
  • Message management ✔
  • Web authorization (OAuth) ✔
  • Media management ✔
  • Article comment management ✔
  • User management ✔
  • Account management ✔
  • Data analytics ✔
  • New customer service APIs ✔
  • WeChat Third-Party Platform ✔
  • WeChat Cards ✔
  • WeChat Stores ✔

Unimplemented Features

  • WeChat Shop ✘
  • Semantic understanding ✘
  • Device APIs ✘
  • Shake-around ✘
  • Wi-Fi ✘
  • QR scanning ✘
  • Invoice APIs ✘

Project Dependencies

The SDK is intentionally lightweight.

  • Jackson (optional): default JSON serialization (customizable)
  • SLF4J: logging
  • Apache HttpComponents (optional): default HTTP client (customizable)
  • JUnit: testing

In addition to API wrappers, the SDK provides extensibility interfaces for:

  • Message deduplication
  • Token caching
  • Message push handling
  • Message handler management

Default implementations are provided but can be replaced as needed.

Using the WeChat SDK

Maven Dependency

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.github.victorymakes</groupId>
  <artifactId>wechat-sdk</artifactId>
  <version>1.1.0</version>
</dependency>

Example Usage

// User tag APIs
@Test
public void testUserTags() {
    TagsResponse tags = UserApi.getTags(TOKEN);
    assertTrue(tags.isSuccess());

    if (!tags.getTags().isEmpty()) {
        Integer tagId = tags.getTags().get(0).getId();

        BaseResponse r1 = UserApi.batchTagUsers(TOKEN, Arrays.asList(OPENID), tagId);
        assertTrue(r1.isSuccess());

        FollowResponse r2 = UserApi.getTagUserIds(TOKEN, tagId, null);
        assertTrue(r2.isSuccess());

        BaseResponse r3 = UserApi.batchUnTagUsers(TOKEN, Arrays.asList(OPENID), tagId);
        assertTrue(r3.isSuccess());
    }
}

// Menu APIs
@Test
public void testCreateMenu() {
    Button click = new Button("click", "Today’s Music", "V1001_TODAY_MUSIC");
    Button view = new Button("view", "Search", "http://www.soso.com/");

    MenuButtons menu = new MenuButtons(Arrays.asList(click, view));
    BaseResponse response = MenuApi.create(TOKEN, menu);

    assertTrue(response.isSuccess());
}

More examples can be found in the project’s unit tests.

Project Repository

GitHub:
https://github.com/victorymakes/wechat-sdk

Changelog

2018-02-28

  • Added WeChat Store APIs
  • Added WeChat Card APIs

2018-03-11

  • Added Mini Program management for Third-Party Platforms
  • Supported domain, member, login, and base info management

2018-03-24

  • Added Mini Program code and template management
  • Released version 1.1.0
  • Improved Third-Party Platform APIs

Planned

  • Card strong authorization
  • WeChat Ads APIs
  • Additional Official Account features

Conclusion

Building a custom WeChat SDK provided full control over structure, dependencies, and extensibility. While existing SDKs work for many use cases, a tailored solution can be more suitable for complex or multi-account scenarios.

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