Difference between JPA Entity and Hibernate Entity

Question

When I annotate a class with @Entity and try to resolve the dependencies, I get to choose the package between two different packages, javax.persistence.Entity and org.hibernate.annotations.Entity

The javax package is JPA's entity-annotation, but why is there a hibernate entity-annotation and difference does it have with JPA's annotation? Is it just an extension to allow more attributes to be defined?

Answer 1

org.hibernate.annotations.Entity has some extra attributes that javax.persistence.Entity has not standarized. The extra features will only work if using hibernate's AnnotationConfiguration directly or if hibernate is the JPA provider.

from the FAQ: edit: new link the specific question: edit: new link the answer:

I use @org.hibernate.annotations.Entity and get an Unknown entity exception

Always import @javax.persistence.Entity

@org.hibernate.annotations.Entity completes @javax.persistence.Entity but is not a replacement

For instance, there is an attribute called optimisticLock, which tells hibernate whether to use the standard version column or to compare all columns when updating. This behavior is not in the JPA spec, so in order to configure it, you must use hibernate specific extension found in their own annotation.

Like this:

@Entity @org.hibernate.annotations.Entity(optimisticLock=OptimisticLockType.ALL) public class MyEntity implements Serializable { ... } 

Answer 2

@org.hibernate.annotations used in your project, if suppose you want to use JDBC template or ibatis we need to change the code. if we use javax.persistence there is no need to change the code. This is the main difference between org.hibernate.annotations and javax persistence