Is Gradle a competitor to Maven?

Hi Russell,



Software architects are faced with a choice between Maven or Gradle (or
other systems) when structuring their projects. So I would definitely call
them competitors.

I am currently in a similar situation to yours, in that the architect of
one of the large development teams with which I collaborate prefers Gradle
to Maven, and is planning to switch to it rather than Maven itself. Members
of that team have a stated dislike Maven's "our way or the highway"
approach to builds, and believe Gradle offers most of Maven's benefits
without Maven's (perceived) inflexibility. Gradle produces Maven-compatible
artifacts, so this decision is not the end of the world.

However, see this thread:
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/maven-users/201209.mbox/%3CB8D164BED956C5439875951895CB4B220EEE1538 [ at ] WABOTH9MSGUSR8C.ITServices.sbc.com%3E

I agree with the OP's assessment:

So even if Gradle is more beautiful and/or succinct (I wish Maven POMs
supported JSON!), I personally like the standardization that Maven brings
to the table, especially after having designed relatively complex build
systems in Ant and then getting stuck maintaining them for many years.
Maven does everything (and much more! extensibly!) that my custom build
system does, largely in a much better way, without reinventing the wheel,
and hence without new developers suffering another learning curve.

Regards,
Curtis