The release of Seed4J 2.0 includes bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades, a migration from JHipster Lite 1.35.0, and support for Angular Internationalization.
Formerly known as JHipster Lite, Seed4J is a “modular code generator that helps developers bootstrap their applications with clarity, structure, and purpose.“
The migration from JHipster Lite 1.35.0, the last version delivered in August 2025, required a refactoring of the namespace and naming conventions. This involved changing tech.jhipster to com.seed4j, and renaming Java and TypeScript filenames that were once prefixed by JHipster.
As described in this LinkedIn post, the decision to migrate the project from JHipster Lite to Seed4J boiled down to three factors:
- Refactoring JHipster to Attract Contributors: Grimaud stopped using JHipster four years ago as it no longer fit his customers’ needs. Grimaud also stated that the code base is too complex.
- Visibility: Despite being stable, some members felt that promoting JHipster Lite on the JHipster website could lead to confusion.
- Add the JHipster Domain Language (JDL) to JHipster Lite: Some members expressed interest in adding the JDL to JHipster Lite, but there was disagreement due to the belief that applications should be built around the business domain, not the database.
Therefore, it was decided to create their own space, their own website, and fork the project.
Seed4J supports Angular Internationalization, also known as i18n, which is the process of designing and preparing a project for use in global locales. The process of localization builds versions of a project for different locales that typically include extracting text for translation into different languages and formatting data for a specific locale. Developers can learn more about i18n by watching this YouTube video.
JHipster Lite, introduced in December 2021, eight years after the introduction of JHipster, was a development platform to “quickly generate, develop, and deploy modern web applications and microservice architectures.” When asked about the inspiration to create JHipster Lite, Pascal Grimaud, Creator and Lead Developer of Seed4J and former Co-Leader of JHipster, told InfoQ:
When I started a new project for my customer, we didn’t know yet which database we would use, which cache, or which security.
We didn’t care about these choices; we just wanted to start coding and implement the business domain in pure Java, using TDD and Hexagonal Architecture.
JHipster was too complex for us. I wanted something modular, with high quality, and the ability to add a database, security, or cache later, just like I could do manually by adding dependencies and configuration.
As Grimaud mentioned, the Seed4J platform is built on the hexagonal architecture, which, as defined in this blog post, is:
An architectural pattern that allows input by users or external systems to arrive into the application at a port via an adapter, and allows output to be sent out from the application through a port to an adapter. This creates an abstraction layer that protects the core of an application and isolates it from external — and somehow irrelevant — tools and technologies.
Using this architecture allows developers to build an application that is easier to test, adapt, and evolve over time. Grimaud told InfoQ that Seed4J is one of the few successful open-source projects using the hexagonal architecture, as shown by their SonarQube analysis.
Grimaud still values the great work done on JHipster, but adds that “Seed4J is about craftsmanship, clean code, and hexagonal architecture.” More details on this release may be found in the release notes.
