The primary advantage of maven is that it gives a common structure to a project and it's dependencies. When working with multiple development teams, it gets ve

The primary advantage of maven is that it gives a common structure to a project and it's dependencies. When working with multiple development teams, it gets very difficult to comprehend different projects when: Project A has the source in /java/src Project B has the source in /main/src/java Project C has the source split in two different dirs: /src/test/java /src/main/java worse yet, compile targets are called: project A -> compile project B -> build (note, the build target in project A will deploy the software to a stage server... good luck the first time you accidentally figure that out) project C -> go and to maintain the version number of your package: Project A uses a file called /resources/projectA.properties with a key of "verno" Project B uses a file called /main/project.version Project C uses a property set in /build/build.properties Maven, when used in a way to avoid the above mentioned problems, will typically have the source code structured the same way for every project. Yes, it's java-centric yes, configuration can be a mess yes, documentation is redunkuluously poor But it sure beats wracking your brain trying to figure out how to build a project when every new developer does it a different way. PS. I've never experienced any of the performance/download problems other folks have mentioned. I think they might be doing something wrong.