Menu
Any company building Java applications.
JRebel is a JVM plug-in which fast tracks the development of Java applications by skipping the time consuming build and redeploy steps. JRebel makes developers more productive since they can view code changes in real time, while preserving application state. JRebel integrates with over 100 leading frameworks, as well as application servers, IDEs and build environments.
JRebel makes Java development reloading a thing of the past, making your developers more productive
Your productivity boost with JRebel
NotPros: When I first learned that there is a way to remove the redeployment of a Java application for almost any change you do in the code, I said: finally, save us from this nightmare. Not needing to redeploy has so many implications like:
- saves development time
- keeps the developer focused on the task at hand
- removes the "context switching" issue (when the developer focuses on something else while redeploying the app)
- improves productivity
- reduces team members' frustration
Cons: The license manager's User Interface is difficult to use. We have a combination of floating and dedicated user licenses and managing these is not intuitive, especially if you have often people joining and leaving the team and you need to assign/reassign licenses.
Overall: Going JRebel for us was great. It improved the productivity in so many ways (they even have reports that calculate how much money you save by avoiding redeployments).
Must have for every web developer
NotPros: Easy to use, saves a lot of time and nerves for developers which at the end means a lot of money saved
Cons: Price can always be a bit lower, not easy to handle who is allowed / disallowed to use license within the company
Overall: time saved
Pros: I work in Grails, a Java-based framework that supports hot code reloading with Spring-loaded. Spring-loaded, unfortunately, lives up to its promise about 40% of the time. Modifying a service with inheritance? Fat chance. Changing static methods on a bean? Good luck! The dependent beans won't get updated. JRebel handles all these situations gracefully and just blows Spring-loaded out of the water.
JRebel's support is extremely responsive and follows up to make sure an issue is resolved.
The kids of death for developers is downtime during development; JRebel's hot reloading stops the waiting and distraction of restarting the server away. Theme product pays for itself many times over by saving costly developer time.
JRebel is also super easy to install, with IDE plugins for many popular editors.
Cons: The only issue we've had with JRebel was in a multi-project Gradle build where it didn't automatically pick up changes to dependent modules. In this case, we had to manually recompile a changed file and then JRebel picked it up right away. Not too much of an issue.