I'm currently using Hibernate annotations for a small project I am working on. I'm also using a wrapper (HibernateUtil.java) to obtain my session. I can't seem to find out the difference between using the Session vs. an EntityManager. On the outside they appear to do the same thing, give support for annotations. Is there any reason why I should use an EntityManager?

Hi,

EntityManager is an object from the Java Persistence API, so if you want to leave your options open for switching between implementations of JPA, then you can developer with using EntityManagers. But it sounds as though that is not something that you are trying to achieve.


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Stephen Souness

So the difference is that session is using the Hibernate implementation and EntityManager is using the Java Persistence implementation? Is there any major advantage other than portability to using the EntityManager? I am just trying to understand the difference between the two.

To switch from using a Session to an EntityManager, assuming I have all the jars setup. Do I simply change my HibernateUtil.java to use EntityManager instead of sessionFactory and add an XML file persistense.xml to replace hibernate.cfg.xml in WEB-INF?