AFAIK, Hibernate Annotations uses the standard EJB3 annotations, as well as providing extras that are in the org.hibernate.* package. "The Hibernate Annotations package includes: * Standardized Java Persistence and EJB 3.0 (JSR 220) object/relational mapping annotations * Hibernate-specific extension annotations for performance optimization and special mappings" This is good because even though you are using Hibernate directly, it would be very easy for you to go to EJB3 later on. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4050785#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...