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Hibernate vs. JDBC

What is Hibernate?

Hibernate is an Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) tool which reduces the difficulty in the application development. Hibernate provides a framework that interacts with the data stored in the databases. It also uses the specifications of the Java Persistence API (JPA).

Hibernate is a robust, scalable, and essential framework of JBoss EAP (Enterprise Application Platform).  JBoss tools provide a smooth implementation and testing of code in application development.

What is JDBC?

JDBC stands for Java Database Connectivity which allows a Java application and its objects to interact with the database. It is a Java API which is used to connect to database, perform queries, and obtain the resultset from the database. It uses JDBC drivers to connect to the database.

What is API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface, is a set of tools for building software applications. It specifies the interaction of software components.

Difference between Hibernate and JDBC

         Criteria                   Hibernate                      JDBC
Usage Hibernate is an ORM tool used to map persistent objects. JDBC is an API used to map data.
Relational persistence for Java Hibernate is a powerful and flexible framework, as there is no need to write excess code (queries) for database connectivity. Hibernate itself takes care of it. In JDBC, we have to write queries and commands explicitly for database connectivity.
Query Language Hibernate supports its query language called Hibernate Query Language (HQL). It also supports SQL (Structured Query Language) for database connectivity. JDBC only supports native SQL (Structured Query Language) for database connectivity.
Database Dependency Hibernate uses HQL, which is database independent. If the changes made in the underlying database, the query remains unchanged. JDBC uses SQL, which is database dependent, as it varies with the type of database. When the underlying database changes, the query needs to be updated.
Caching Hibernate supports two-level caching mechanism, first-level, and second-level caching. There is no caching mechanism supported by JDBC.
Cascading Hibernate supports cascading, which helps in managing all the tasks of Hibernate. We need to use Cascade and CascadeType in the annotation. JDBC doesn’t support cascading. In JDBC, a developer explicitly writes lines of code for every task.
Automatic Table Creation In Hibernate, tables can be created automatically with the help of hbm2ddl.auto configuration property. Automatic table creation is not available in JDBC. JDBC does not create a non-existing table in the database.
Primary Key Generation Hibernate provides a feature of generating primary key automatically using @Id annotation in the POJO class. There is no primary key generation in JDBC. We need to set it before saving the record explicitly.

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