Main differences between Maven 3 and 4 - Stack Overflow

Now that there is release candidate 2 of Maven 4.0.0 and things become more stable, I would like to know:

What are the main differences between Maven 3.x and 4.0.0 for Maven users (and Maven plugin developers)?

I tried to have a look at release notes and the Maven homepage, but I am a bit overwhelmed. A lot information is about the internal structure of Maven, and there is a huge number of issues in the issue tracker that are resolved, but I did find any good information that summarizes the main improvements and breaking changes.

Now that there is release candidate 2 of Maven 4.0.0 and things become more stable, I would like to know:

What are the main differences between Maven 3.x and 4.0.0 for Maven users (and Maven plugin developers)?

I tried to have a look at release notes and the Maven homepage, but I am a bit overwhelmed. A lot information is about the internal structure of Maven, and there is a huge number of issues in the issue tracker that are resolved, but I did find any good information that summarizes the main improvements and breaking changes.

• maven
• maven-3
• maven-4

Share Improve this question Follow asked Jan 31 at 16:09 J Fabian MeierJ Fabian Meier 36.1k1111 gold badges8585 silver badges170170 bronze badges 4

• At the moment there are some PR open to do some documentation github.com/apache/maven-site/pull/598 for example... not ready yet... – khmarbaise Commented Jan 31 at 17:09
• @khmarbaise But maybe you could give a short summary? – J Fabian Meier Commented Feb 1 at 9:16
• 1 This presentation (shared in maven dev mailing list) has some high level information gnodet.github.io/maven4-presentation – Raghuram Commented Feb 2 at 16:12
• 1 maven.apache.org/whatsnewinmaven4.html – khmarbaise Commented Mar 3 at 19:05

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Main points are:

1. Separation of build POM and consumer POM. The build POM gets a new model version, while the consumer POM, generated during the build, still uses 4.0.0
2. Better handling of modules (now called subprojects), less duplication of version numbers.
3. A new packaging type bom for Bills of Materials.
4. Improved lifecycle which allows to handle things happening before and after certain phases.
5. A Maven shell that allows faster execution of Maven commands.

See also https://maven.apache.org/whatsnewinmaven4.html, thanks to Karl-Heinz Marbaise for the link.