However, structure is diametrically different. Maven continues using XML as the format to write build specification.

Its goal was to improve upon some of the problems developers were facing when using Ant. Main benefit of Ant is its control of the build process. Later on, as dependency management over the network became a must, Ant adopted Apache Ivy. Another problem with Ant is that its XML tends to become unmanageably big when used with all but very small projects. XML, being hierarchical in nature, is not a good fit for procedural programming approach Ant uses. Major drawback was XML as the format to write build scripts. It is based on procedural programming idea.Īfter its initial release, it was improved with the ability to accept plug-ins. It has very low learning curve thus allowing anyone to start using it without any special preparation. It was released in 2000 and in a short period of time became the most popular build tool for Java projects.

JVM ecosystem is dominated with three build tools:Īnt was the first among “modern” build tools. However, since then our needs increased and, as a result, build tools evolved. In the beginning there was Make as the only build tool available.

Apache ant vs apache maven