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Java ORM and Jakarta Persistence implementation · by Hibernate team

Hibernate ORM

Java's most established ORM and the reference-style Jakarta Persistence (JPA) implementation, with HQL, two-level caching and support for more than a dozen databases; Apache 2.0 licensed since version 7.

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Hibernate ORM homepage
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Overview

Hibernate has been in production use for more than two decades and heavily shaped the JPA specification, now Jakarta Persistence. You annotate entity classes, obtain a Session or EntityManager, and Hibernate tracks changes and writes them on flush, with optimistic locking by default, flexible fetching strategies and a two-level cache. HQL is an object-oriented SQL dialect, and Hibernate Processor can validate HQL at compile time.

Hibernate is tested daily on PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Db2, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase ASE, EDB, TiDB, HANA, CockroachDB, H2 and HSQLDB, with built-in Spanner support and community dialects for older databases and incubating SQLite support. It can generate schema DDL, but production teams usually manage migrations with Flyway or Liquibase.

Hibernate ORM 7.0 (19 May 2025) was the first final release under the Apache License 2.0 instead of LGPL 2.1, and moved to Jakarta Persistence 3.2 and Java 17. The 7.4 series, current stable since May 2026, adds temporal and audited entities; 8.0 is in beta for Jakarta Persistence 4.0. Spring Boot 4.1 pairs with Hibernate 7.4.

§2

Pricing and plans

Plan Price What you get
Hibernate ORM $0 Apache 2.0 since 7.0; commercial support available through third parties

Hibernate ORM is free. The project links to commercial support offerings (for example for end-of-life series), which are priced by their vendors and not recorded here.

Source: hibernate.org/orm/releases/ · prices as published, excluding tax.

§3

What it does

Jakarta Persistence
Full JPA implementation plus Hibernate's native API, usable in Spring Boot, Quarkus, WildFly or plain Java SE.
HQL and Criteria
Object-oriented query language with broad ANSI SQL coverage, compile-time validation via Hibernate Processor.
Caching and fetching
Tunable fetch strategies and a two-level cache architecture.
Temporal and audit
Since 7.4, temporal and audited entities even on databases without native temporal tables.
Jakarta Data
Repository-style programming model supported through Hibernate's implementation.
Wide dialect support
Built-in dialects for major commercial and open-source databases, plus community dialects.
§4

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Very mature, with decades of production use and documentation
  • Standard JPA API, so skills transfer between frameworks
  • Broad database support including Oracle, Db2 and HANA
  • Apache 2.0 licence since 7.0 removes LGPL concerns

Limitations

  • Large conceptual surface: sessions, persistence context, lazy loading and flush modes need care to avoid N+1 queries and surprises
  • No built-in versioned migration tool; teams add Flyway or Liquibase
  • Older series reach end of life quickly (7.0, 7.1 and 7.3 are already end-of-life)
  • The relicensing dropped the Teradata dialect and hibernate-ucp module
§5

Who it suits

Good for

  • Spring Boot and Quarkus applications
  • Enterprise Java systems on Oracle, SQL Server or Db2
  • Domain models with inheritance and complex relationships

Look elsewhere if

  • Teams that want SQL-first, type-safe query building (jOOQ fits better)
  • Small services where a lightweight JDBC wrapper is enough
§6

Pricing history

  • Hibernate ORM 7.0 released

    7.0.0.Final shipped as the first final release under Apache 2.0, requiring Java 17 and implementing Jakarta Persistence 3.2. Source ↗

  • Hibernate ORM relicensed from LGPL to Apache 2.0

    Hibernate announced ORM is relicensed under Apache 2.0 from 7.0 onwards (7.0.0.Beta5, 21 March 2025, was the first Apache release); 6.x and older stay LGPL 2.1. The Teradata dialect and hibernate-ucp were dropped as a result. Source ↗

§7

Alternatives to Hibernate ORM

Tool From Free option Stages
SQLAlchemy Python SQL toolkit and ORM
— Open source
Ent Code-generated Go entity framework
— Open source
Eloquent ORM Active Record ORM for Laravel
— Open source
Doctrine ORM Data mapper ORM for PHP
— Open source
Dapper .NET micro-ORM
— Open source
TypeORM Decorator-based TypeScript ORM
— Open source

All ORMs and database toolkits →

§8

Questions

What licence is Hibernate ORM under?

Apache License 2.0 since 7.0.0.Beta5 (March 2025); earlier versions remain LGPL 2.1.

Which Hibernate version should I use?

7.4 is the latest stable series as of September 2026; 8.0 is in beta for Jakarta Persistence 4.0.

Does Hibernate handle migrations?

It can generate or update schema, but versioned production migrations are usually done with Flyway or Liquibase.

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