In this article, we will be
looking into few major yet important differences
between two of the most
popular build tools Gradle and Maven.
Before starting comparison let’s
understand in brief about both of them.
Maven
Apache Maven is a software
project management and comprehension tool. Based on the concept of a project
object model (POM), Maven can manage a project's build, reporting, and
documentation from a central piece of information.
Few of the important features
of Maven are:
รผ
Simple project setup that follows best
practices - get a new project or module started in seconds.
รผ
Consistent usage across all projects - means no
ramp-up time for new developers coming onto a project.
รผ
Superior dependency management including
automatic updating, dependency closures (also known as transitive dependencies)
รผ
Able to easily work with multiple projects at
the same time
รผ Extensible, with the ability to easily write
plugins in Java or scripting languages
รผ Instant access to new features with little or
no extra configuration
Gradle
Gradle is a general-purpose
build tool designed for multi-project builds. Basically, Gradle combines the
best parts of established tools like Ant and Maven.
Gradle is the official build tool for Android
and was chosen by Google for its extensibility. It’s currently one of the most
popular Java build tools, along with Maven and Nexus.
Some of the key features of Gradle include:
รผ Declarative builds and build-by-convention −
Gradle is available with separate Domain Specific Language (DSL) based on
Groovy language. Gradle provides a declarative language element. Those
elements also provide build-by-convention support for Java, Groovy, OSGI, Web
and Scala.
รผ Language for dependency-based programming − The
declarative language lies on a top of a general-purpose task graph, which you
can fully leverage in your build.
รผ Structure your build − Gradle finally allows
you to apply common design principles to your build. It will give you a perfect
structure for the build, SO that you can design well-structured and easily
maintained comprehensible build.
รผ Deep API − Using this API it allows you to
monitor and customize its configuration and execution behavior to its core.
รผ Gradle scales − Gradle can easily increase
their productivity, from a simple and single project, builds to huge enterprise
multi-project builds.
รผ Multi-project builds − Gradle supports for
multi-project builds and it supports partial builds. If you build a subproject
Gradle takes care of building all the subprojects that it depends on.
Below is
the list of a few major differences between Gradle and Maven.
S.No
|
Gradle
|
Maven
|
1
|
An open
source build automation tool that is built on concepts of Apache Ant and
Apache Maven.
|
It is
compressive software project management tool used primarily for project build
automation using Java.
|
2
|
Written in
Java, Kotlin and Gradle.
|
It is written in Java.
|
3
|
Gradle
Build time is short and fast.
|
Maven
performance is slow as compared to Gradle.
|
4
|
Gradle Scripts are much short
and cleaner.
|
Maven scripts are a bit
lengthy as compared to Gradle.
|
5
|
It uses
Domain-specific language (DSL)
|
It uses
XML
|
6
|
It is based on the task
using which work is performed.
|
In maven goals are
defined which is linked to the project.
|
7
|
It
supports incremental compilations of java class.
|
It does
not support incremental compilations.
|
