Comparison of OpenJPA with H2 embedded vs Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded

Each of the following tables focuses on a specific database operation, where the last table presents average results comparison.

Speed comparison of JPA database persistence operations (normalized score, higher is better)

Transaction Size =>	Few Entities		Many Entities		Average Score
	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded
Basic Person Test	17.1	32.6	5.8	13.1	11.5	22.9
Element Collection Test	10.9	15.1	4.9	8.2	7.9	11.7
Inheritance Test	14.3	25.5	5.9	13.6	10.1	19.5
Indexing Test	24.4	29.6	13.7	18.8	19.1	24.2
Graph (Binary Tree) Test	6.8	13.8	6.7	15.6	6.7	14.7
Multithreading Test	34.2	37.4	10.2	13.0	22.2	25.2
All Tests	17.9	25.6	7.9	13.7	12.9	19.7

The results above show that in general Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is more efficient than OpenJPA with H2 embedded in persisting JPA entity objects to the database.

A large performance gap has been detected when using graphs of objects with large transaction size. Comparing the normalized speed of OpenJPA with H2 embedded database (6.7) to the normalized speed of Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded database (15.6) reveals that in that case, Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is 2.3 times faster than OpenJPA with H2 embedded.

Speed comparison of JPA database retrieval operations (normalized score, higher is better)

Retrieval Size =>	Few Entities		Many Entities		Average Score
	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded
Basic Person Test	14.6	24.8	27.2	16.4	20.9	20.6
Element Collection Test	0.0046	11.3	4.3	10.8	2.1	11.0
Inheritance Test	0.011	21.7	7.4	21.0	3.7	21.3
Indexing Test	17.0	11.9	35.0	21.5	26.0	16.7
Graph (Binary Tree) Test	1.0	3.6	1.4	4.7	1.2	4.1
Multithreading Test	18.7	19.8	27.6	21.5	23.1	20.6
All Tests	8.6	15.5	17.1	16.0	12.8	15.7

The results above show that in general Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is slightly more efficient than OpenJPA with H2 embedded in retrieving JPA entity objects from the database.

A huge performance gap has been detected when using JPA element collections with small retrieval size. Comparing the normalized speed of OpenJPA with H2 embedded database (0.0046) to the normalized speed of Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded database (11.3) reveals that in that case, Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is 2,457 times faster than OpenJPA with H2 embedded.

Speed comparison of JPA database query operations (normalized score, higher is better)

Retrieval Size =>	Few Entities		Many Entities		Average Score
	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded
Basic Person Test	5.0	3.6	1.1	0.88	3.1	2.2
Element Collection Test	1.7	3.4	1.3	1.7	1.5	2.6
Inheritance Test	2.2	2.9	1.2	1.0	1.7	1.9
Indexing Test	13.8	9.9	23.2	21.7	18.5	15.8
Multithreading Test	1.4	1.1	0.60	0.58	0.99	0.82
All Tests	4.8	4.2	5.5	5.2	5.1	4.7

The results above show that in general OpenJPA with H2 embedded is slightly more efficient than Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded in executing the tested JPA queries.

On the other hand, OpenJPA with H2 embedded is slower, for instance, when using JPA element collections with small retrieval size. Comparing the normalized speed of OpenJPA with H2 embedded database (1.7) to the normalized speed of Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded database (3.4) reveals that in that case, OpenJPA with H2 embedded is 2.0 times slower than Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded.

Speed comparison of JPA database update operations (normalized score, higher is better)

Transaction Size =>	Few Entities		Many Entities		Average Score
	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded
Basic Person Test	10.0	14.2	6.0	5.0	8.0	9.6
Element Collection Test	0.011	10.1	3.8	5.6	1.9	7.8
Inheritance Test	0.046	13.4	5.0	7.5	2.5	10.5
Indexing Test	8.9	10.7	7.0	6.1	8.0	8.4
Graph (Binary Tree) Test	2.4	3.7	1.3	2.5	1.9	3.1
Multithreading Test	16.6	23.9	4.3	3.8	10.4	13.9
All Tests	6.3	12.7	4.6	5.1	5.4	8.9

The results above show that in general Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is more efficient than OpenJPA with H2 embedded in updating JPA entity objects in the database.

A huge performance gap has been detected when using JPA element collections with small transaction size. Comparing the normalized speed of OpenJPA with H2 embedded database (0.011) to the normalized speed of Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded database (10.1) reveals that in that case, Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is 918 times faster than OpenJPA with H2 embedded.

Speed comparison of JPA database removal operations (normalized score, higher is better)

Transaction Size =>	Few Entities		Many Entities		Average Score
	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded
Basic Person Test	18.3	26.1	11.1	17.5	14.7	21.8
Element Collection Test	0.012	9.1	2.9	5.2	1.4	7.1
Inheritance Test	0.030	21.4	6.6	17.7	3.3	19.6
Indexing Test	23.2	33.0	9.7	16.3	16.4	24.7
Graph (Binary Tree) Test	1.8	5.4	2.4	8.2	2.1	6.8
Multithreading Test	31.2	38.5	17.3	28.6	24.2	33.5
All Tests	12.4	22.3	8.3	15.6	10.4	18.9

The results above show that in general Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is more efficient than OpenJPA with H2 embedded in deleting JPA entity objects from the database.

A huge performance gap has been detected when using JPA element collections with small transaction size. Comparing the normalized speed of OpenJPA with H2 embedded database (0.012) to the normalized speed of Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded database (9.1) reveals that in that case, Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is 758 times faster than OpenJPA with H2 embedded.

Comparison of database storage efficiency (normalized score, higher is better)

Transaction Size =>	Few Entities		Many Entities		Average Score
	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded
Basic Person Test	27.0	41.4	27.0	41.4	27.0	41.4
Element Collection Test	30.6	46.9	30.6	46.9	30.6	46.9
Inheritance Test	27.0	41.4	27.0	41.4	27.0	41.4
Indexing Test	31.6	48.4	32.1	49.2	31.9	48.8
Graph (Binary Tree) Test	28.5	28.5	21.4	21.4	24.9	25.0
Multithreading Test	33.9	51.9	9.2	10.3	21.5	31.1
All Tests	29.8	43.1	24.5	35.1	27.2	39.1

The results above show that in general Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is more efficient than OpenJPA with H2 embedded in using disk space.

Comparison of JPA/Database speed - the averages (normalized score, higher is better)

Transaction/Retrieval Size	Few Entities		Many Entities		Average Score
	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded	OpenJPA H2 embedded	Hibernate HSQLDB embedded
Basic Person Test	13.0	20.2	10.2	10.6	11.6	15.4
Element Collection Test	2.5	9.8	3.4	6.3	3.0	8.0
Inheritance Test	3.3	17.0	5.2	12.2	4.3	14.6
Indexing Test	17.5	19.0	17.7	16.9	17.6	18.0
Graph (Binary Tree) Test	3.0	6.6	3.0	7.8	3.0	7.2
Multithreading Test	20.4	24.1	12.0	13.5	16.2	18.8
All Tests	10.2	16.5	8.8	11.3	9.5	13.9

The results above show that in general Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is more efficient than OpenJPA with H2 embedded in performing JPA database operations.

A large performance gap has been detected when using class inheritance in the object model with small transaction/retrieval size. Comparing the normalized speed of OpenJPA with H2 embedded database (3.3) to the normalized speed of Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded database (17.0) reveals that in that case, Hibernate with HSQLDB embedded is 5.2 times faster than OpenJPA with H2 embedded.

JPA Performance Benchmark (JPAB)