Differences between Ant and Maven

Question

Could someone tell me the differences between Ant and Maven  I have never used either  I understand that they are used to automate the building of Java projects  but I do not know where to start from

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Maven also houses a large repository of commonly used open source projects   During the build Maven can download these dependencies for you  as well as your dependencies dependencies      to make this part of building a project a little more manageable

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I d say it depends upon the size of your project    Personnally  I would use Maven for simple projects that need straightforward compiling  packaging and deployment  As soon as you need to do some more complicated things  many dependencies  creating mapping files      I would switch to Ant

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Maven is a Framework  Ant is a Toolbox  Maven is a pre-built road car  whereas Ant is a set of car parts  With Ant you have to build your own car  but at least if you need to do any off-road driving you can build the right type of car   To put it another way  Maven is a framework whereas Ant is a toolbox  If you re content with working within the bounds of the framework then Maven will do just fine  The problem for me was that I kept bumping into the bounds of the framework and it wouldn t let me out   XML Verbosity  tobrien is a guy who knows a lot about Maven and I think he provided a very good  honest comparison of the two products  He compared a simple Maven pom xml with a simple Ant build file and he made mention of how Maven projects can become more complex  I think that its worth taking a look at a comparison of a couple of files that you are more likely to see in a simple real-world project  The files below represent a single module in a multi-module build   First  the Maven file    lt project      xmlns  http   maven apache org POM 4 0 0       xmlns xsi  http   www w3 org 2001 XMLSchema-instance      xsi schemaLocation  http   maven apache org POM 4 0 0 http   maven apache org maven-4 0 0 xsd  gt        lt parent gt           lt groupId gt com mycompany lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt app-parent lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt 1 0 lt  version gt       lt  parent gt        lt modelVersion gt 4 0 0 lt  modelVersion gt       lt artifactId gt persist lt  artifactId gt       lt name gt Persistence Layer lt  name gt        lt dependencies gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt com mycompany lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt common lt  artifactId gt               lt scope gt compile lt  scope gt               lt version gt   project version  lt  version gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt com mycompany lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt domain lt  artifactId gt               lt scope gt provided lt  scope gt               lt version gt   project version  lt  version gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt org hibernate lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt hibernate lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt   hibernate version  lt  version gt               lt scope gt provided lt  scope gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt commons-lang lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt commons-lang lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt   commons-lang version  lt  version gt               lt scope gt provided lt  scope gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt org springframework lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt spring lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt   spring version  lt  version gt               lt scope gt provided lt  scope gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt org dbunit lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt dbunit lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt 2 2 3 lt  version gt               lt scope gt test lt  scope gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt org testng lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt testng lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt   testng version  lt  version gt               lt scope gt test lt  scope gt               lt classifier gt jdk15 lt  classifier gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt commons-dbcp lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt commons-dbcp lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt   commons-dbcp version  lt  version gt               lt scope gt test lt  scope gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt com oracle lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt ojdbc lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt   oracle-jdbc version  lt  version gt               lt scope gt test lt  scope gt           lt  dependency gt            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt org easymock lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt easymock lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt   easymock version  lt  version gt               lt scope gt test lt  scope gt           lt  dependency gt        lt  dependencies gt    lt  project gt    And the equivalent Ant file    lt project name  persist   gt        lt import file     build common-build xml    gt         lt path id  compile classpath main  gt           lt pathelement location    common jar     gt           lt pathelement location    domain jar     gt           lt pathelement location    hibernate jar     gt           lt pathelement location    commons-lang jar     gt           lt pathelement location    spring jar     gt       lt  path gt         lt path id  compile classpath test  gt           lt pathelement location    classes dir main     gt           lt pathelement location    testng jar     gt           lt pathelement location    dbunit jar     gt           lt pathelement location    easymock jar     gt           lt pathelement location    commons-dbcp jar     gt           lt pathelement location    oracle-jdbc jar     gt           lt path refid  compile classpath main    gt       lt  path gt         lt path id  runtime classpath test  gt           lt pathelement location    classes dir test     gt           lt path refid  compile classpath test    gt       lt  path gt     lt  project gt    tobrien used his example to show that Maven has built-in conventions but that doesn t necessarily mean that you end up writing less XML  I have found the opposite to be true  The pom xml is 3 times longer than the build xml and that is without straying from the conventions  In fact  my Maven example is shown without an extra 54 lines that were required to configure plugins  That pom xml is for a simple project  The XML really starts to grow significantly when you start adding in extra requirements  which is not out of the ordinary for many projects     But you have to tell Ant what to do  My Ant example above is not complete of course  We still have to define the targets used to clean  compile  test etc  These are defined in a common build file that is imported by all modules in the multi-module project  Which leads me to the point about how all this stuff has to be explicitly written in Ant whereas it is declarative in Maven   Its true  it would save me time if I didn t have to explicitly write these Ant targets  But how much time  The common build file I use now is one that I wrote 5 years ago with only slight refinements since then  After my 2 year experiment with Maven  I pulled the old Ant build file out of the closet  dusted it off and put it back to work  For me  the cost of having to explicitly tell Ant what to do has added up to less than a week over a period of 5 years    Complexity  The next major difference I d like to mention is that of complexity and the real-world effect it has  Maven was built with the intention of reducing the workload of developers tasked with creating and managing build processes  In order to do this it has to be complex  Unfortunately that complexity tends to negate their intended goal    When compared with Ant  the build guy on a Maven project will spend more time    Reading documentation  There is much more documentation on Maven  because there is so much more you need to learn  Educating team members  They find it easier to ask someone who knows rather than trying to find answers themselves  Troubleshooting the build  Maven is less reliable than Ant  especially the non-core plugins  Also  Maven builds are not repeatable  If you depend on a SNAPSHOT version of a plugin  which is very likely  your build can break without you having changed anything  Writing Maven plugins  Plugins are usually written with a specific task in mind  e g  create a webstart bundle  which makes it more difficult to reuse them for other tasks or to combine them to achieve a goal  So you may have to write one of your own to workaround gaps in the existing plugin set    In contrast    Ant documentation is concise  comprehensive and all in one place  Ant is simple  A new developer trying to learn Ant only needs to understand a few simple concepts  targets  tasks  dependencies  properties  in order to be able to figure out the rest of what they need to know   Ant is reliable  There haven t been very many releases of Ant over the last few years because it already works  Ant builds are repeatable because they are generally created without any external dependencies  such as online repositories  experimental third-party plugins etc  Ant is comprehensive  Because it is a toolbox  you can combine the tools to perform almost any task you want  If you ever need to write your own custom task  it s very simple to do    Familiarity  Another difference is that of familiarity  New developers always require time to get up to speed  Familiarity with existing products helps in that regard and Maven supporters rightly claim that this is a benefit of Maven  Of course  the flexibility of Ant means that you can create whatever conventions you like  So the convention I use is to put my source files in a directory name src main java  My compiled classes go into a directory named target classes  Sounds familiar doesn t it   I like the directory structure used by Maven  I think it makes sense  Also their build lifecycle  So I use the same conventions in my Ant builds  Not just because it makes sense but because it will be familiar to anyone who has used Maven before

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I can take a person that has never seen Ant - its build xmls are reasonably well-written - and they can understand what is going on   I can take that same person and show them a Maven POM and they will not have any idea what is going on   In an engineering organization that is huge  people write about Ant files becoming large and unmanageable  I ve written those types and clean Ant scripts  It s really understanding upfront what you need to do going forward and designing a set of templates that can respond to change and scale over a 3  year period   Unless you have a simple project  learning the Maven conventions and the Maven way about getting things done is quite a bit of work    At the end of the day you cannot consider project startup with Ant or Maven a factor  it s really the total cost of ownership  What it takes for the organization to maintain and extend its build system over a few years is one of the main factors that must be considered   The most important aspects of a build system are dependency management and flexibility in expressing the build recipe  It must be somewhat intuitive when done well

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Maven or Ant  is a very similar question to this one  which should help you answer your questions   What is Maven  on the official site   edit  For a new greenfield project  I d recommend using Maven   convention over configuration  will save you a decent chunk of time in writing and setting up build and deployment scripts  When you use ant  the build script tends to grow over time in length and complexity  For existing projects  it can be hard to shoehorn their configuration layout into the Maven system

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Maven acts as both a dependency management tool - it can be used to retrieve jars from a central repository or from a repository you set up - and as a declarative build tool  The difference between a  declarative  build tool and a more traditional one like ant or make is you configure what needs to get done  not how it gets done  For example  you can say in a maven script that a project should be packaged as a WAR file  and maven knows how to handle that   Maven relies on conventions about how project directories are laid out in order to achieve its  declarativeness   For example  it has a convention for where to put your main code  where to put your web xml  your unit tests  and so on  but also gives the ability to change them if you need to   You should also keep in mind that there is a plugin for running ant commands from within maven   http   maven apache org plugins maven-ant-plugin   Also  maven s archetypes make getting started with a project really fast  For example  there is a Wicket archetype  which provides a maven command you run to get a whole  ready-to-run hello world-type project   https   wicket apache org start quickstart html

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In Maven  The Definitive Guide  I wrote about the differences between Maven and Ant in the introduction the section title is  The Differences Between Ant and Maven    Here s an answer that is a combination of the info in that introduction with some additional notes   A Simple Comparison  I m only showing you this to illustrate the idea that  at the most basic level  Maven has built-in conventions     Here s a simple Ant build file    lt project name  my-project  default  dist  basedir     gt       lt description gt          simple example build file      lt  description gt          lt  -- set global properties for this build -- gt          lt property name  src  location  src main java   gt       lt property name  build  location  target classes   gt       lt property name  dist   location  target   gt        lt target name  init  gt         lt  -- Create the time stamp -- gt         lt tstamp  gt         lt  -- Create the build directory structure used by compile -- gt         lt mkdir dir    build    gt          lt  target gt        lt target name  compile  depends  init          description  compile the source    gt         lt  -- Compile the java code from   src  into   build  -- gt         lt javac srcdir    src   destdir    build    gt         lt  target gt        lt target name  dist  depends  compile          description  generate the distribution   gt         lt  -- Create the distribution directory -- gt         lt mkdir dir    dist  lib   gt          lt  -- Put everything in   build  into the MyProject-  DSTAMP  jar file -- gt         lt jar jarfile    dist  lib MyProject-  DSTAMP  jar  basedir    build    gt      lt  target gt       lt target name  clean          description  clean up   gt        lt  -- Delete the   build  and   dist  directory trees -- gt        lt delete dir    build    gt        lt delete dir    dist    gt      lt  target gt    lt  project gt    In this simple Ant example  you can see how you have to tell Ant exactly what to do  There is a compile goal which includes the javac task that compiles the source in the src main java directory to the target classes directory  You have to tell Ant exactly where your source is  where you want the resulting bytecode to be stored  and how to package this all into a JAR file  While there are some recent developments that help make Ant less procedural  a developer s experience with Ant is in coding a procedural language written in XML   Contrast the previous Ant example with a Maven example  In Maven  to create a JAR file from some Java source  all you need to do is create a simple pom xml  place your source code in   basedir  src main java and then run mvn install from the command line  The example Maven pom xml that achieves the same results    lt project gt     lt modelVersion gt 4 0 0 lt  modelVersion gt     lt groupId gt org sonatype mavenbook lt  groupId gt     lt artifactId gt my-project lt  artifactId gt     lt version gt 1 0 lt  version gt   lt  project gt    That s all you need in your pom xml  Running mvn install from the command line will process resources  compile source  execute unit tests  create a JAR  and install the JAR in a local repository for reuse in other projects  Without modification  you can run mvn site and then find an index html file in target site  that contains links to JavaDoc and a few reports about your source code   Admittedly  this is the simplest possible example project  A project which only contains source code and which produces a JAR  A project which follows Maven conventions and doesn t require any dependencies or customization  If we wanted to start customizing the behavior  our pom xml is going to grow in size  and in the largest of projects you can see collections of very complex Maven POMs which contain a great deal of plugin customization and dependency declarations  But  even when your project s POM files become more substantial  they hold an entirely different kind of information from the build file of a similarly sized project using Ant  Maven POMs contain declarations   This is a JAR project   and  The source code is in src main java   Ant build files contain explicit instructions   This is project    The source is in src main java    Run javac against this directory    Put the results in target classses    Create a JAR from the        etc  Where Ant had to be explicit about the process  there was something  built-in  to Maven that just knew where the source code was and how it should be processed    High-level Comparison  The differences between Ant and Maven in this example   Ant      doesn t have formal conventions like a common project directory structure  you have to tell Ant exactly where to find the source and where to put the output  Informal conventions have emerged over time  but they haven t been codified into the product  is procedural  you have to tell Ant exactly what to do and when to do it  You had to tell it to compile  then copy  then compress  doesn t have a lifecycle  you had to define goals and goal dependencies  You had to attach a sequence of tasks to each goal manually    Where Maven      has conventions  it already knew where your source code was because you followed the convention  It put the bytecode in target classes  and it produced a JAR file in target  is declarative  All you had to do was create a pom xml file and put your source in the default directory  Maven took care of the rest  has a lifecycle  which you invoked when you executed mvn install  This command told Maven to execute a series of sequence steps until it reached the lifecycle  As a side-effect of this journey through the lifecycle  Maven executed a number of default plugin goals which did things like compile and create a JAR    What About Ivy   Right  so someone like Steve Loughran is going to read that comparison and call foul   He s going to talk about how the answer completely ignores something called Ivy and the fact that Ant can reuse build logic in the more recent releases of Ant    This is true   If you have a bunch of smart people using Ant   antlibs   Ivy  you ll end up with a well designed build that works    Even though  I m very much convinced that Maven makes sense  I d happily use Ant   Ivy with a project team that had a very sharp build engineer     That being said  I do think you ll end up missing out on a number of valuable plugins such as the Jetty plugin and that you ll end up doing a whole bunch of work that you didn t need to do over time   More Important than Maven vs  Ant   Is that you use a Repository Manager to keep track of software artifacts    I d suggest downloading Nexus    You can use Nexus to proxy remote repositories and to provide a place for your team to deploy internal artifacts  You have appropriate modularization of software components    One big monolithic component rarely scales over time   As your project develops  you ll want to have the concept of modules and sub-modules    Maven lends itself to this approach very well  You adopt some conventions for your build   Even if you use Ant  you should strive to adopt some form of convention that is consistent with other projects    When a project uses Maven  it means that anyone familiar with Maven can pick up the build and start running with it without having to fiddle with configuration just to figure out how to get the thing to compile

User · Answer

Just to list some more differences    Ant doesn t have formal conventions  You have to tell Ant exactly where to find the source  where to put the outputs  etc   Ant is procedural  You have to tell Ant exactly what to do  tell it to compile  copy  then compress  etc  Ant doesn t have a lifecycle   Maven uses conventions  It knows where your source code is automatically  as long as you follow these conventions  You don t need to tell Maven where it is  Maven is declarative  All you have to do is create a pom xml file and put your source in the default directory  Maven will take care of the rest  Maven has a lifecycle  You simply call mvn install and a series of sequence steps are executed   Maven has intelligence about common project tasks  To run tests  simple execute mvn test  as long as the files are in the default location  In Ant  you would first have to JUnit JAR file is  then create a classpath that includes the JUnit JAR  then tell Ant where it should look for test source code  write a goal that compiles the test source and then finally execute the unit tests with JUnit    Update   This came from Maven  The Definitive Guide  Sorry  I totally forgot to cite it

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Ant is mainly a build tool   Maven is a project and dependencies management tool  which of course builds your project as well    Ant Ivy is a pretty good combination if you want to avoid Maven

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