Ecosystem & Learning Resources
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This content was generated with the assistance of AI and should be verified against the official documentation before being relied on in production. The reference material consulted while preparing these pages is listed in the section bibliography. |
This page is the only place in the section that talks about tools and services built around Ant, Maven and Gradle. It describes each of them in one line, says whether it is maintained, and gives its official site and documentation. None of them is documented further here. The section itself covers Apache Ant 1.10.18 (with Ivy 2.6.0 and the Maven Resolver Ant Tasks 2.0.0), Apache Maven 3.10.0 (3.9.16 where it differs, and 4.0.0-rc-7, a release candidate) and Gradle 9.8.1 (8.14.6 where it differs). Every link below was requested on 2026-10-16 and answered; where an address now redirects to a new home, the new address is the one shown. Nothing on the page is run: the tools are described from their own sites and release pages, and the status cells are a snapshot of that day.
How the page was assembled
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Selection criterion. A project is listed when the official Ant, Maven or Gradle documentation links to it, or when it is one of the most common plugins, services or tools in its area. The page does not rank projects and does not quote popularity statistics, download counts or star counts. The order inside a table groups related projects and is not a ranking.
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Status. The status cell says what the project’s own release page, repository or site showed on 2026-10-16: the latest release (version and date) when the project publishes numbered releases, or "retired", "archived" or "moved" when the project says so itself. "Rolling" means the project publishes no numbered releases.
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Third-party. Everything except Apache Ant, Apache Maven, Gradle and their own sites and plugins is third-party. Third-party tools are not endorsed by this section, and each has its own license and support terms.
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Examples. The page contains no program. The only identifiers shown are the group and plugin coordinates that a project’s own documentation shows.
Other JVM build tools
Ant, Maven and Gradle are not the only tools that build JVM projects. The tools below are not documented in this section. The ones aimed at another language have a section of their own in this site, linked where it exists. The Comparing Ant, Maven & Gradle page puts the three main tools side by side, and Migrating Between Tools covers moving between them.
| Tool | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
sbt |
The interactive build tool of the Scala ecosystem; build definitions are written in Scala. See sbt & Build Tools in the Scala section. |
v2.0.10, 2026-10-02 |
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Mill |
A build tool for Java, Scala and Kotlin whose build files are Scala or Java/Kotlin programs; it stresses fast incremental builds. |
1.3.0, 2026-10-10 |
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Bazel |
Google’s multi-language build system for large monorepos; JVM dependencies from Maven repositories are resolved with the
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9.3.0, 2026-10-07 ( |
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Buck2 |
Meta’s build system, the successor to Buck, for large multi-language repositories. |
Rolling (no numbered releases) |
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Leiningen |
The build and project tool of the Clojure ecosystem, driven by a |
Development moved to Codeberg; the GitHub repository is a temporary mirror |
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bld |
A build tool in which the build is written as plain Java (Java 17 or later), from the RIFE2 project. |
3.0.1, 2026-09-13 |
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Kotlin Toolchain (formerly Amper) |
JetBrains' build tool for Kotlin and Java projects with a focus on user experience and IDE support. The |
0.13.0, 2026-10-01 (a 0.x release) |
The Kotlin and Groovy sections of this site describe how those languages use Gradle and Maven: Build and Tooling and Build Tools: Gradle, Maven and Ant.
The Ant ecosystem
Ant’s own site lists the optional libraries (antlibs) and the tools that grew around it. The mechanics of using an antlib are on Antlibs & Namespaces.
| Project | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
Apache Ivy |
The dependency manager for Ant builds. It has its own pages in this section, starting with Ivy: Overview. |
2.6.0 |
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Maven Resolver Ant Tasks |
Ant tasks that resolve and deploy dependencies with the Maven resolver. See Maven Resolver Ant Tasks. |
2.0.0 |
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AntUnit |
Unit tests for Ant build files and tasks, with assertion tasks. |
1.5.0, 2026-06-19 |
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CycloneDX Antlib |
Tasks that create a CycloneDX software bill of materials from an Ant build. |
0.2, 2026-09-25 |
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Props Antlib |
Tasks and types for working with properties. |
1.0.0, 2026-06-27 |
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Compress Antlib |
Tasks and types for archive formats beyond those in core Ant, built on Apache Commons Compress. |
1.5, 2017-06-13 (the oldest latest release among the Antlibs on the Ant site) |
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Ant-Contrib |
A long-standing third-party collection of tasks ( |
Dormant |
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Apache IvyDE |
The Eclipse plug-in for Ivy. Ant’s site lists it among the retired libraries and its GitHub repository is archived. |
Retired |
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Apache EasyAnt |
A build framework layered on Ant and Ivy. |
Retired |
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.NET and Visual SourceSafe antlibs |
Support for .NET applications and for Microsoft Visual SourceSafe from Ant. |
Retired |
The full list of tools and tasks that Ant’s authors know about is on Apache Ant: external tools and tasks.
The Maven ecosystem
| Project | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
MojoHaus |
A community home for Maven plugins. The best known are |
Maintained; the |
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Maven Daemon (mvnd) |
An Apache Maven project that keeps a warm JVM between builds. See Build Performance: Cache, Parallel Builds & mvnd. |
1.0.6, 2026-05-30 |
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Maven Build Cache Extension |
An Apache Maven extension that caches module outputs by input hash. See the same page as mvnd. |
1.3.0, 2026-08-16 |
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Takari |
A GitHub organization with Maven add-ons; its |
Active repositories |
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Polyglot Maven |
Lets a POM be written in a format other than XML, such as YAML or Groovy. |
polyglot-0.8.2, 2026-07-01 |
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OpenTelemetry Maven extension |
A Maven extension that emits OpenTelemetry traces for a build. |
Maintained inside the OpenTelemetry Java contrib repository |
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Retired Apache Maven plugins |
Plugins that Maven retired, among them |
Retired |
The Gradle ecosystem
| Project | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
Gradle Plugin Portal |
The default place Gradle looks up plugins by id. See Plugins Overview. |
Service |
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Develocity and Build Scan |
The commercial build-observability and acceleration product from the company formerly named Gradle Technologies, and the Build Scan feature that Gradle can publish. See Gradle: Performance Profiling & Build Scans. |
Maintained; the company was renamed Develocity and its pages moved to develocity.ai |
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Gradle Security Subscription |
A paid subscription from Gradle, Inc. that gives early notice of security problems. |
Service |
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Declarative Gradle |
An experimental project for a more declarative way to write builds. |
v0.1.44 (a 0.x experimental project) |
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foojay toolchain resolver |
The Gradle settings plugin that downloads a missing JDK for a toolchain, using the Foojay Disco API. See Gradle Toolchains. |
Maintained |
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Spotless |
A code formatter that runs as a Gradle or Maven plugin. The Gradle plugin id is |
maven/3.10.4, 2026-10-08 |
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Shadow |
The Gradle plugin that builds fat or uber JARs, now maintained under GradleUp; it is the Gradle counterpart of the Maven
Shade plugin. The plugin id is |
9.6.1, 2026-07-22 |
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Ben Manes Versions plugin |
Reports which dependencies have newer versions. The plugin page for the new id |
v0.66.0, 2026-10-12 |
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Android Gradle Plugin |
Google’s plugin for building Android apps; it needs Gradle and is versioned against it. |
Maintained by Google |
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Kotlin Gradle plugin |
JetBrains' plugin that compiles Kotlin with Gradle. |
Maintained by JetBrains |
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Spring Boot plugins |
The Spring Boot Gradle and Maven plugins that repackage executable JARs and run the application. |
Maintained by the Spring team |
Plugins that a page of the section needs are named there with a link to the project, and they are listed again in the tables above and below. How a Gradle plugin is written and tested is on Testing & Publishing Gradle Plugins.
Repository managers and Maven Central
A repository manager proxies Maven Central, hosts a team’s own artifacts and gives builds one URL to resolve from. The tool-neutral explanation is on Repositories & Publishing Across Tools, the Maven settings that point at one are on Repositories, Mirrors & Repository Managers, and publishing to Central is on Publishing to Maven Central.
| Project | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
Sonatype Central |
The service behind Maven Central, with the Central Portal used to publish artifacts. |
Service |
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Sonatype Nexus Repository |
A repository manager that hosts and proxies Maven and other formats. |
Maintained |
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JFrog Artifactory |
A repository manager and artifact platform, with a free edition for Maven and Gradle repositories. |
Maintained |
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Reposilite |
A lightweight, open-source repository manager for Maven artifacts. |
3.6.3, 2026-08-30 |
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Apache Archiva |
A repository manager from the Maven project’s early years; it is the manager used by the Maven 2 book in this section’s bibliography. |
Retired to the Apache Attic |
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Apache Continuum |
A continuous-integration server from the Maven project. |
Retired to the Apache Attic |
Quality and supply-chain plugins
These tools run as Maven plugins, Gradle plugins or both. How a build enforces them is on Maven Site & Reporting and Gradle Testing JVM Projects. The supply-chain side is on Supply-Chain Security for JVM Builds.
| Project | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
JaCoCo |
The code-coverage library with Maven and Gradle plugins. |
Maintained |
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SpotBugs |
Static analysis of Java bytecode for bug patterns. |
Maintained |
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PMD |
Static analysis of source code. |
Maintained |
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Checkstyle |
Checks that source code follows a coding standard. |
Maintained |
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SonarQube scanners |
The scanner plugins that send a Maven or Gradle project’s analysis to SonarQube. |
Maintained |
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OWASP Dependency-Check |
Looks up a project’s dependencies in known-vulnerability databases, with Maven, Gradle and Ant integrations. |
Maintained |
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CycloneDX plugins |
Create a CycloneDX software bill of materials from a Maven or Gradle build. |
Maintained |
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japicmp |
Compares two versions of a JAR to find incompatible API changes. |
Maintained |
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Revapi |
Another API-change checker, with Maven integration. |
Maintained |
Containers
| Project | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
Jib |
Builds container images for Java applications from Maven or Gradle without a Docker daemon. |
v3.5.4-gradle, 2026-07-14 |
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Spring Boot image building |
The |
Maintained by the Spring team |
The GWT section has a page about build configuration, Build Tools: Maven & Gradle.
CI services
The practical side of running the three tools on a CI server, including the cache settings and the workflow files, is on CI and IDE Integration for Ant, Maven and Gradle.
| Project | What it is | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
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The GitHub Actions maintained by Gradle for setting up Gradle, caching and publishing Build Scans. |
Maintained |
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The GitHub Action that installs a JDK and can cache Maven and Gradle dependencies. |
Maintained |
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Jenkins |
The open-source automation server; Gradle publishes a Jenkins plugin. |
Maintained |
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GitLab CI/CD |
GitLab’s built-in pipeline system. |
Service |
IDEs
Every IDE below reads a build file and keeps the project model in step with it.
| IDE | Build-tool support | Status (2026-10-16) | Official links |
|---|---|---|---|
IntelliJ IDEA |
Native support for Maven, Gradle and Ant projects. |
Maintained |
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Eclipse |
M2Eclipse (m2e) for Maven; Buildship for Gradle, whose old address now redirects to its Eclipse project page. |
Maintained |
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Visual Studio Code |
The Extension Pack for Java and the Gradle for Java extension. |
Maintained |
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Apache NetBeans |
Built-in Maven, Gradle and Ant project support. |
Maintained |
Learning resources
| Resource | What it offers | Links |
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Apache Ant manual |
The reference and the Hello World tutorial. |
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Apache Maven guides |
Maven in five minutes, the getting-started guide and the other official guides. |
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Gradle documentation |
The user manual, the getting-started tutorial series, the guides and the sample projects. |
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Develocity Productivity Engineering University |
Free online courses on Gradle, Maven and build performance from Develocity. |
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Java Development with Ant |
Erik Hatcher and Steve Loughran, Manning, 2002. Written for Ant 1.5, so use it for the ideas and the official manual for the syntax. |
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Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation |
Maria Odea Ching and Brett Porter, Packt, 2009. Written for Maven 2.2, Archiva 1.2 and Continuum 1.3. |
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Gradle in Action |
Benjamin Muschko, Manning, 2014. Written for Gradle 1.7. |
The three books are the older sources of this section’s bibliography; the landing page lists every source used, and each page that draws on a book says where the book is out of date.