What JRebel is/isn’t?
JRebel is • A development-time tool that decreases turnaround by instantly reloading changes to your code, without having to restart the container or redeploy the application. • A JVM -javaagent plugin. The -javaagent is a command line option that has been available since Java 5 to allow custom instrumentation plugins to be registered. JRebel uses this option for installation. • A JAR file about 1 MB big. That’s pretty much says it all – there is no long installation process: just unzip, copy, add options to the command line and enjoy! JRebel isn’t • An IDE plugin. There is some configuration/integration you can do to improve your experience, but JRebel will work with a vanilla Java compiler and a text editor as well. • A framework. JRebel does not introduce any dependencies in your application. You can take it away at any moment and just continue developing the way you do usually. • An application server. JRebel works with all prominent application servers, but it definitely isn’t one
