Mastering Python Design Patterns - Second Edition

Use cases

Since the abstract factory pattern is a generalization of the factory method pattern, it offers the same benefits, it makes tracking an object creation easier, it decouples object creation from object usage, and it gives us the potential to improve the memory usage and performance of our application.

But, a question is raised: How do we know when to use the factory method versus using an abstract factory? The answer is that we usually start with the factory method which is simpler. If we find out that our application requires many factory methods, which it makes sense to combine to create a family of objects, we end up with an abstract factory.

A benefit of the abstract factory that is usually not very visible from a user's point ...