Introduction:

Gavin King is the founder of the Hibernate project. Hibernate is a free, open source Java package that makes it easy to work with relational databases.

what is Hibernate?

Java based ORM Solutions.

Managed by Jboss Group.

Features:
OO based model
Dual layers cache from performance
Supports fine grained object model
Query language similar to SQL
XML based configure and mapping

Benefits of Hibernate:

Traction
Open Source
LGPL Model
Very Active Project
Pure Java
POJO Model
Integration
Supports most RDBMS model

Features of Hibernate:

Mostly transparent persistence for POJOs
XML-based object/relational mapping
It have an "Entity Manager" API - Hibernate Session and JDO Persistence Manager
Ability to run applications both inside and outside the EJB container
Transaction-level and process-level caches
Rich query language
Ability to eagerly load related objects
Efficient handling of large result sets

Advantage of Hibernate:

Hibernate is better then plain JDBC
Mapping of Domain object to relational database:
Layered architecture:
JPA Provider
Database Independent:
Caching Framework

Disadvantage of Hibernate:

Lots of API to learn
Debugging
Slower than JDBC
Not suitable for Batch processing