Various arrangements are known as the Wien bridge, Maxwell bridge and Heaviside bridge.

The additional complexity of using a Maxwell bridge over simpler bridge types is warranted in circumstances where either the mutual inductance between the load and the known bridge entities, or stray electromagnetic interference, distorts the measurement results.

A Maxwell bridge (in long form, a Maxwell-Wien bridge) is a type of Wheatstone bridge used to measure an unknown inductance (usually of low Q value) in terms of calibrated resistance and capacitance.