Advantages of Hibernate Over JDBC?

Hibernate is a framework used in Java to ease the development of applications to interact with databases. On the other hand, JDBC is an API to connect and execute queries with database in Java.

In this blog, we will be talking about the main advantages of hibernate over JDBC. Let’s discuss each of them one by one in detail.

1. Database Dependency

The Hibernate is not dependent on the database whereas in the case of JDBC the queries that need to be written are dependent on the database.

So if we are using some database like MySQL or PostgreSQL in beginning but in the later stage, we have the liability of switching to another database like oracle.

It is so because hibernate creates XML configuration files therefore only these files are changed instead of the complete query.

Let’s take an example in which we need to fetch data of the top 10 using a query.

For SQL:

SELECT TOP 10 name_of_column FROM name_of_table ORDER BY name_of_column ASC

For PostgreSQL:

SELECT name_of_column FROM name_of_table ORDER BY name_of_column ASC LIMIT 10

For Hibernate:

Session.CreateQuery(“SELECT t. name_of_column FROM name_of_table t ORDER BY t.name_of_column ASC”).SetMaxResults(10).List()

There is no change required in the query for hibernate.

2. Optimized Code

Hibernate creates more shorter and optimized code. For example, by creating the connection while using Hibernate the developer should not need to write the complex queries because HCL is there to ease the written query whereas in JDBC it is the complete responsibility of the developer to program the queries.

3. Caching

Hibernate comes up with the caching mechanism. When a query is running multiple times then it can store the value instead of checking it repeatedly from the database. It is responsible to increase the performance of your system whereas in the case of JDBC there isn’t any caching mechanism available.

Hibernate comes up with two types of caching levels which are first level and second level.

4. Lazy Loading

Lazy loading of data can be achieved with Hibernate. Lazy loading is a kind of data fetching mechanism and it helps in increasing performance. For example, if we have multiple child classes for parent classes but we need only some specific child classes to get loaded. Therefore through lazy loading, we can select some of the specific classes for execution.

5. Associations

Associate mapping can be done while using Hibernate. We can use associations like one to one and one to many through annotations. This helps to manage the entity in an easier way.

Let’s see an example of one to many mapping through the below program.

Suppose we have two tables, the first one is BOX and the second one is ACCESSORIES. They are having one to many relations among them. Now let’s create two model classes Box and Accessories below:

Box class:

 @Entity
  @Table(name="BOX")
   public class Box {

       @Id
       @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
       @Column(name="box_id")
       private long id;
 
 
       @Column(name="name")
       private String name;
 
       @OneToMany(mappedBy="box")
       private Set<Accessories> accessories;
 
          // Getter Setter methods according to the arguments
  }

Accessories class:

@Entity
  @Table(name="ACCESSORIES")
  public class Accessories {

       @Id
       @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
       @Column(name="id")
       private long id;
 
       @Column(name="accessory_id")
       private String accessoryId;
 
       @Column(name="accessory_total")
       private double accessoryTotal;
 
       @Column(name="quantity")
       private int quantity;
 
       @ManyToOne
       @JoinColumn(name="box_id", nullable=false)
       private Box box;
 
        //Hibernate requires no-args constructor
       public Items(){}
 
         // Getter Setter methods according to the arguments
  }

So these were some of the benefits of Hibernate over JDBC. Please do comment below if you are having any doubts.