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javahibernatejpaormtoplink

What does Hibernate/Toplink offer above JPA?

As far as I know, JPA itself offers all the shiny features like ORM, JPQL, entity relations mapping and so on. But I don't really understand, why do people use Hibernate or Toplink on top of JPA.

What does Hibernate offer that JPA itself doesn't have?

Solution

  • JPA is just a specification. Hibernate and TopLink are implementations of that specification.

    Also, the JPA spec is a bit weak, it provides only a subset of the functions that the likes of Hibernate and TopLink provide. Sometimes it is desirable or necessary to go beyond JPA and use the proprietary features of the underlying implementation.