Updated March 1, 2023
Difference Between Spring vs Hibernate
The following article provides an outline for Spring vs Hibernate. Spring is an open-source framework developed by pivotal is an application framework and inversion of control container for the Java platform which provides infrastructure support for developing applications. Hibernate is a Java framework that provides an object-relational mapping to an object-oriented model to the relational database. It means hibernate provides from Java classes to database tables and also provides data querying and retrieval facility.
What is spring?
Spring allows developers to concentrate on business logic and it takes care of infrastructure. Spring makes it easy to develop enterprise Java applications and provides support for Kotlin and Groovy as alternate languages on JVM and provides flexibility to develop applications with any kind of architectures based on needs. In general, a developer writes business logic using Java classes and interfaces which are called plain old Java classes and Plain old Java Interfaces. In spring, developers can write their logic in Plain old Java classes and provide metadata in an XML file and spring container creates objects which can be used by developers in the project. The dependency on the application is provided by spring framework and it is called dependency injection.
What is hibernate?
Hibernate framework provides an abstraction layer which means programmers need not worry about implementation. Hibernate will implement different modules for developers internally like writing query’s to perform CURD operations on the database and establishing connection to different kinds of databases. Hibernate framework is used to develop persistence logic which means storing and processing the data for long use. In a precise manner hibernate framework is an open-source to develop objects which are independent of database software and make independent persistence logic in Java for all Java enterprise edition (JEE).
Head To Head Comparison Between Spring vs Hibernate (Infographics)
Below is the top 6 differences between Spring vs Hibernate
Key Differences Between Spring vs Hibernate
Both are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major difference:
- Spring is an open-source, light-weight and cross-platform application framework for easy application development as it takes care of infrastructure and developers need to concentrate on business logic whereas Hibernate is an entirely different framework for ORM (object-relational mapping) between Java classes and database tables and provides services such as data retrieval and data persistence.
- Spring framework is useful for transaction management, dependency injection; aspect-oriented programming for applications whereas Hibernate framework is useful for object-relational persistence, access data layers, and query retrieval services for enterprise-level applications.
- Spring framework has support for connection pooling by changing the configuration file but it has a problem like connection pool may be got exhausted whereas Hibernate framework has support for connection pooling by storing database connection details in a cache and used later which leads to increase in performance.
- Hibernate framework has support for versioning that is user can define version fields and update whenever there is a change in the dataset whereas Spring framework doesn’t have support for versioning so developers need to handle while developing.
- Spring is an open-source application framework developed by pivotal which provides infrastructure support for developers and lets them concentrate on logic whereas Hibernate is an open-source, lightweight, a cross-platform framework is developed by Red Hat.
- Hibernate framework offers object-relational mapping between Java classes and database tables and doesn’t have any modules whereas Spring framework has a lot of modules some of them are Spring core, Spring Security, Spring MVC, Spring JDBC, and many more modules.
Spring vs Hibernate Comparison Table
Below is the topmost comparison:
| Basis of Comparison | Spring | Hibernate |
| Definition | Spring is an open-source application framework which is complete and modular for developing applications as it will take care of infrastructure and developers need to concentrate on business logic. | Hibernate is a Java framework which provides an object-relational mapping to an object-oriented model to the relational database which is specialized in data persisting and retrieval of data from the database. |
| Usage | Spring framework is useful for transaction management, aspect-oriented programming, and dependency injection; develop applications from desktop to web enterprise applications in Java. | Hibernate framework provides object-relational persistence, access data layers and query retrieval service for applications for enterprise level applications in Java. |
| Modules | Spring framework which is light-weight, open source and cross-platform have a lot of modules some of them are Spring core, Spring security, Spring JDBC, Spring MVC, and many more modules. | Hibernate framework which is light-weight, open source and cross-platform offers object-relational model mapping between Java classes and database tables hence there no modules in it like Spring. |
| Developer | Spring is an open-source application framework developed by pivotal which provides infrastructure support to developers and lets developers concentrate on logic. | Hibernate framework is an object-relational mapping between Java classes and database tables developed by a red hat and also provides support for data persistence and data retrieval from tables. |
| Versioning | Spring framework has no support for versioning as we need to use JDBC connection to a database with spring framework and developers need to handle when two users simultaneously modifying the data and using. | Hibernate framework has versioning as an important feature where developers can define version fields in the application and whenever there is a change in data it will update. When two users simultaneously retrieve the same data and use and one user saves the data after modifying then version will update and next user changes will affect on the latest dataset. |
| Connection Pooling | Spring framework has support for connection pooling by changing the configuration in spring configuration file for Java applications, web and desktop applications but it has the problem of connection pooling exhausted in few cases. | Hibernate framework has support for connection pooling by storing database connections in a cache while creating and uses after whenever we are connected to a specific database which will help to increase the performance and we can enable connection pooling by changing configuration file of hibernate. |
Conclusion
Finally, it’s an overview of the comparison between Spring vs Hibernate framework where we have seen the advantages and disadvantage of both Spring vs Hibernate. We hope you will have a good understanding of Spring vs Hibernate frameworks after reading this Spring vs Hibernate article. As we know Spring is a popular framework with core container, JDBC, MVC, and other features for developing an application whereas hibernate provides communication between application and databases through objects without SQL as it provides high performance, scalability, and reliability. Spring is a complete modular framework for developing enterprise applications whereas Hibernate is an ORM framework specialized in data retrieving and persistence.
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