JHipster 7.0, released March 23, updated the data model editor JDL Studio to version 2, added Snyk security vulnerability scanning, and introduced the JHipster Control Center to manage microservices. The release also updated dependencies and defaults and was followed by version 7.0.1 on April 2.
Despite being the first major release in nearly two years, JHipster 7.0 has only a handful of other new features. End-to-end JavaScript testing has been switched from Protractor to Cypress, Vue.js is moved from a plugin into the JHipster core, and Angular uses Angular CLI instead of Webpack as the build system.
JHipster 7.0 now requires Java 8 to 15. Dependency updates include Spring Boot 2.4, Angular 11, Typescript 4, Webpack 5 for React and Vue, and Docker Compose version 3. The code formatter Prettier for Java, Java 11, and PostgreSQL are new defaults.
JHipster jump-starts new microservice and monolith applications by generating complete projects with CRUD screens, user management, administration, tests, Continuous Integration, and deployment. Initially only for Spring Boot, JHipster now also generates Micronaut, Quarkus, NodeJS, and .NET projects. Julien Dubois, Java developer advocacy manager at Microsoft, started the project more than six years ago and still leads it today.
Unlike other application generators, such as Grails, JHipster doesn’t put layers of library-specific code into the generated output. Instead, it creates best-practice, production-level Java and Javascript code with just a tiny server-side support library. So developers can create an application with JHipster and then immediately "take over" - work on the code as if they wrote it all themselves, and never need to involve JHipster in the application again.
JHipster includes many different technologies for both monolith and microservice architectures. Back-end frameworks are Spring Boot, Quarkus, Micronaut, NodeJS, and .NET. Except for Spring Boot, plugins - which JHipster calls "blueprints" - provide these frameworks. JHipster can generate front ends with React, Angular, and Vue.
JHipster Domain Language (JDL) files define the data model of an application with entities. Developers edit JDL files manually or in the free JDL Studio editor. JHipster generates the back-end and front-end code for the CRUD screens from these JDL files.
Just as with other JHipster releases, existing JHipster applications can get these new and updated features by running the built-in upgrade tool. It will re-generate the application with JHipster on a separate Git branch. Developers then merge that branch into their code branch.
Beyond jump-starting new projects, JHipster can also help to learn by running and examining code. JHipster creates multiple variations of the same application with the same data but competing technologies. Examples are NoSQL data stores versus relational databases or React versus Angular versus Vue.
