Do I need Maven to use Hibernate?

Question

I'm trying to use Hibernate for the first time, and early on in the getting started guide, it makes reference to Maven. If I'm not mistaken, Maven appears to be a build tool. However, I've been using Eclipse to build my project up to this point.

Is there a way for me to use Hibernate without needing Maven? Can I just do what I need through Eclipse? Does anyone have a link to a resource that can show me how to do this?

Answer 1

You do not need maven to use Hibernate. Maven offers the ease of having a single dependency to include all the jars necessary. Without maven you will have to download and import each jar that hibernate relies on. This would be a manual process.

Hibernate does not rely on maven as it does say javax.sql.

Answer 2

No, of course not. I never use Maven - ever, for anything. Keep using Eclipse to build your projects.

I find that it's hard enough to learn one new thing at a time. If you're just learning Hibernate, why complicate your life with Maven?

Answer 3

You don't need Maven to use Hibernate. Without Maven, you'll just have to download and add the jar dependencies to the project manually, which isn't hard. And you can use whichever build process you use.

Answer 4

You do not need Maven to use Hibernate with Eclipse.

How-to on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/159227/can-anyone-recommend-a-good-reference-for-setting-up-hibernate3-with-eclipse

More Resources:

1. My Favorite: http://www.laliluna.de/articles/first-hibernate-example-tutorial.html

2. http://www.skill-guru.com/blog/2009/08/05/first-hibernate-tutorial-%E2%80%93get-hands-on-experience/#more-259