Software Alternatives & Startups

Grails VS Ebean ORM

Compare Grails VS Ebean ORM and see what are their differences

Grails

An Open Source, full stack, web application framework for the JVM

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source
Ebean ORM

ORM for Java / Kotlin

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Grails should be more popular than Ebean ORM. It has been mentioned 6 times since March 2021.

social mentions
6 vs 4
Web Frameworks popularity
89% vs 11%
alternatives listed
188 vs 31

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

Grails
Ebean ORM
Website grails.org ebean.io
Pricing
Open source
Open source
Listed in

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Grails 6 features
Ebean ORM 5 features
  • Rapid Development
    Grails promotes rapid development through its convention-over-configuration approach and powerful features, like scaffolding and GORM (Grails Object Relational Mapping), which speed up the coding process significantly.
  • Groovy Language Integration
    Being built on Groovy, a dynamic language for the Java platform, Grails provides the flexibility and expressiveness of Groovy while maintaining compatibility with Java libraries and tools.
  • Spring Boot Foundation
    Grails is built on top of Spring Boot, leveraging its robust dependency injection, security, and configuration management capabilities, which ensures the stability and scalability of applications.
  • Plugin Ecosystem
    Grails offers a rich ecosystem of plugins for extending the framework. This allows developers to easily integrate various functionalities without reinventing the wheel.
  • Convention-over-Configuration
    The framework emphasizes conventions for many aspects of the development process, reducing the need for extensive configuration and allowing developers to focus more on business logic.
  • Strong Community and Documentation
    Grails has a strong community and extensive documentation, which make it easier for developers to find solutions to problems, share knowledge, and get support.

Possible disadvantages

  • Learning Curve
    Despite its many conveniences, Grails has a steep learning curve, particularly for developers not familiar with Groovy or the underlying Spring framework.
  • Performance Overheads
    The abstraction layers and dynamic aspects of Groovy may introduce performance overheads, making Grails applications potentially slower than those built with more streamlined frameworks.
  • Limited Flexibility
    While Grails' conventions can be beneficial, they can also limit flexibility, forcing developers into certain patterns and practices even when they may not be ideal for all scenarios.
  • Less Popularity
    Compared to other frameworks like Spring Boot alone or Hibernate, Grails has a smaller market share, leading to fewer job opportunities and a smaller pool of resources.
  • Complex Debugging
    The dynamic nature of Groovy can sometimes make debugging more complex and challenging, especially for those accustomed to statically-typed languages like Java.
  • Dependency Management Issues
    Managing dependencies in Grails can occasionally be problematic, particularly when dealing with transitive dependencies or conflicts between plugins.
  • Simplified ORM
    Ebean ORM simplifies database interactions with an easy-to-use API, which abstracts away much of the complexity involved in handling SQL directly. This allows developers to focus more on business logic rather than database connectivity and queries.
  • Automatic Query Generation
    Ebean automatically generates queries based on the defined entity models, reducing the need for manually crafting complex SQL queries. This feature can save development time and reduce the potential for query-related errors.
  • Lazy Loading Support
    Ebean supports lazy loading, which allows for the efficient retrieval of data by only loading related entities when they are accessed. This can help improve application performance by reducing initial data loading times.
  • Integration with Play Framework
    Ebean integrates seamlessly with the Play Framework, which is advantageous if you are developing applications using this framework, providing a cohesive development experience and reducing setup complexity.
  • Full-text Search
    Ebean provides built-in support for full-text search, enabling applications to perform search operations without relying on external search services, thus offering more versatility in how data can be queried and manipulated.

Possible disadvantages

  • Limited Ecosystem
    Compared to more established ORMs like Hibernate, Ebean has a smaller community and ecosystem, which may result in less third-party support, fewer tutorials, and less available expertise, potentially increasing the learning curve for new developers.
  • Documentation
    While Ebean offers documentation, some users might find it lacking in depth compared to larger projects, which can make troubleshooting and advanced use cases more challenging to navigate without external help or experimentation.
  • Resource Intensive
    Ebean can be resource-intensive in terms of memory and processing, especially in cases of complex data models or when dealing with extremely large datasets, which might impact application performance and scalability.
  • Lack of Advanced Features
    For highly specialized and advanced ORM tasks, Ebean might lack some of the features offered by more mature ORMs like Hibernate, which could necessitate additional work or integration with other tools for complex requirements.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Grails
Ebean ORM

Overall verdict

  • Grails is a good choice for developers who appreciate convention over configuration and are looking for a quick, efficient way to build web applications. Its integration with the JVM ecosystem makes it particularly appealing for those with existing Java knowledge or infrastructure. However, as with any technology, its suitability depends on specific project requirements and team expertise.

Why this product is good

  • Grails is considered a powerful web application framework built on Groovy and the Spring Framework. It promotes rapid development, convention over configuration, and is designed to be easy to learn for Java developers. Grails provides a variety of built-in features such as ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) with GORM, a robust plugin system, and seamless integration with third-party libraries and frameworks. It aims to boost productivity by simplifying tasks and reducing configuration overhead.

Recommended for

  • Java developers looking to increase productivity
  • Teams that prefer convention over configuration
  • Projects that require rapid development and prototyping
  • Developers interested in using the Groovy language
  • Applications that need seamless integration with the Spring Framework

No analysis of Ebean ORM yet.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Grails 3 videos + Add
Ebean ORM 1 video + Add

BUYING MY SNEAKER GRAILS ON STOCKX!

More videos

  • - TOP 5 SNEAKER GRAILS
  • - Top 5 Grails with Superpower Review | Berkfamily54comics

Ebean ORM - fetch join @OneToMany maxRows treatment

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
Grails
Ebean ORM
89% 89%
11% 11%
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%
100% 100%
0% 0%

User comments

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Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Grails no reviews yet
Ebean ORM no reviews yet

We have no reviews of Ebean ORM yet. Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Grails 6 mentions
Ebean ORM 4 mentions
  • Mastering Node.js
    Trails is a modern web application framework. It builds on the pedigree of Rails and Grails to accelerate development by adhering to a straightforward, convention-based, API-driven design philosophy. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • RIFE2 web framework under development
    And frameworks like Grails build conventions and helpers on top of Spring. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • Web app in Java with Template Engine
    I don't have any direct experience and am only suggesting it because you mentioned RoR...But Grails (https://grails.org/) is basically the JVM version of RoR (Groovy on Rails -> Grails). Source: almost 4 years ago

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  • How do you guys go about the persistence layer?
    You can have a look at https://ebean.io/ ... Better control over the generated SQL, multiple levels of abstraction, can generate DB migrations and run the DB migrations, transparent encryption support, SQL 2011 history support, test... Source: over 4 years ago
  • What do you whish for Spring 6?
    There is https://ebean.io/ and looks like it a community driven alternative to jOOQ. Source: about 5 years ago
  • Do you use code generators in your IDEs or some external ones? If so, which ones?
    Ebean ORM https://ebean.io/ was built to somewhat rival JPA (and JDBI) Btw: you can use java 16 records with ebean as DTOs, EmbeddedId and also as read only entity beans (and JPA implementations could similarly do so). Source: about 5 years ago

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Alternatives to Grails and Ebean ORM

When comparing Grails and Ebean ORM, you can also consider the following products.