Difference between File and FTP adapter in Oracle Integration Cloud

There are two inbuilt adapters offered by Oracle Integration Cloud. One is File and another one is FTP. Users often confused when to use File and when to use FTP adapter and what is the actual difference between these two adapters.

The common idea behind these two adapters is to handle File-based processing in the integrations.

We are writing this post to describe what is the actual difference between these two adapters?

S. No.	File Adapter	FTP Adapter
1	File can be processed from the server where the connectivity agent is installed	File can be processed from any SFTP server which is publicly accessible
2	The adapter can be used to connect to the server which is having the network restrictions	The adapter cannot be used to connect to FTP and sFTP servers behind company firewalls
3	File adapter is supported for both trigger and invoke connections	FTP Adapter is only supported as an invoke connection
4	Following operations are supported: Read File Write File	Following operations are supported: Read File Write File List File Delete File Move File Download File
5	Doesn’t allow to create encrypted file	Allows developer to create encrypted file using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) cryptography
6	Doesn’t allow to decrypt the files	Allow developer to decrypt a file that is being read or downloaded from a remote FTP / sFTP server using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) cryptography