In order for a difference to exist, there should be something in common, and apart from being database-related (although JTA is not only that), they have nothing more in common:
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JPA is a standard for Java object-relational mapping – it specifies a set of annotations and an interface –
EntityManager
to perform persistence operations with the mapped objects. Hibernate implements the JPA standard -
plain JDBC is a technology for accessing databases. It is what Hibernate actually uses to perform the database operations, “under the hood”. It uses JDBC to send queries to the database.
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JTA is a transaction API, and it is optional in Hibernate. It handles (logically) the transaction behaviour.