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Welcome to Apache Commons

Apache Commons is an Apache project focused on all aspects of reusable Java components.

The Apache Commons project is composed of three parts:

• The Commons Proper - A repository of reusable Java components.
• The Commons Sandbox - A workspace for Java component development.
• The Commons Dormant - A repository of components that are currently inactive.

You may also read our charter, which spells out the goals of the project in greater detail.

The Apache Commons source code repositories are writable for all ASF committers. While Apache Commons is a Commit-Then-Review community, we would consider it polite and helpful for contributors to announce their intentions and plans on the dev mailing list before committing code. All contributors should read our contributing guidelines. We accept patches as SVN diff files uploaded to the Apache bugtracker or as pull request via our github mirrors.

Apache Commons Proper

Commons Proper is dedicated to one principal goal: creating and maintaining reusable Java components. The Commons Proper is a place for collaboration and sharing, where developers from throughout the Apache community can work together on projects to be shared by the Apache projects and Apache users.

Commons developers will make an effort to ensure that their components have minimal dependencies on other libraries, so that these components can be deployed easily. In addition, Commons components will keep their interfaces as stable as possible, so that Apache users (including other Apache projects) can implement these components without having to worry about changes in the future.

This article gives an overview of (some of) the components which can be found here.

We welcome participation from all that are interested, at all skill levels. Coding, documentation and testing are all critical parts of the software development process. If you are interested in participating in any of these aspects, please join us!

Component	Description	Latest Maven Version	Release Version	Release Date
BCEL	Byte Code Engineering Library - analyze, create, and manipulate Java class files		6.13.0	2026-09-10
BeanUtils 1.X	Easy-to-use wrappers around the Java reflection and introspection APIs.		1.11.0	2025-05-27
BeanUtils 2.X	Easy-to-use wrappers around the Java reflection and introspection APIs.		2.0.0-M2	2025-05-27
BSF	Bean Scripting Framework - interface to scripting languages, including JSR-223		3.1	2010-06-24
CLI	Command Line arguments parser.		1.11.0	2025-11-12
Codec	General encoding/decoding algorithms (for example phonetic, base64, URL).		1.23.0	2026-10-11
Collections	Extends or augments the Java Collections Framework.		4.6.0	2026-08-10
Compress	Defines an API for working with tar, zip and bzip2 files.		1.28.0	2025-07-29
Configuration	Reading of configuration/preferences files in various formats.		2.15.1	2026-05-26
Crypto	A cryptographic library optimized with AES-NI wrapping Openssl or JCE algorithm implementations.		1.2.0	2023-01-23
CSV	Component for reading and writing comma separated value files.		1.14.1	2025-07-30
Daemon	Alternative invocation mechanism for unix-daemon-like java code.		1.6.1	2026-06-11
DBCP	Database connection pooling services.		2.14.0	2025-12-16
DbUtils	JDBC helper library.		1.8.1	2023-09-14
Digester	XML-to-Java-object mapping utility.		3.2	2011-12-13
Email	Library for sending e-mail from Java.		2.0.0-M1	2024-06-27
Exec	API for dealing with external process execution and environment management in Java.		1.6.0	2025-12-02
FileUpload	File upload capability for your servlets and web applications.		1.6.0	2025-06-06
FileUpload2	File upload capability for your servlets and web applications.		2.0.0-M5	2026-02-17
Geometry	Space and coordinates.		1.0	2021-08-21
Imaging (previously called Sanselan)	A pure-Java image library.		1.0.0-alpha6	2025-04-30
IO	Collection of I/O utilities.		2.22.0	2026-04-23
JCI	Java Compiler Interface		1.1	2013-10-14
JCS	Java Caching System		3.2.1	2024-05-27
Jelly	XML based scripting and processing engine.		1.0.1	2017-09-25
Jexl	Expression language which extends the Expression Language of the JSTL.		3.7.1	2026-10-19
JXPath	Utilities for manipulating Java Beans using the XPath syntax.		1.4.0	2025-04-18
Lang	Provides extra functionality for classes in java.lang.		3.21.0	2026-09-29
Logging	Wrapper around a variety of logging API implementations.		1.4.0	2026-06-17
Math	Lightweight, self-contained mathematics and statistics components.		4.0-beta1	2022-12-20
Net	Collection of network utilities and protocol implementations.		3.13.0	2026-03-18
Numbers	Number types (complex, quaternion, fraction) and utilities (arrays, combinatorics).		1.3	2026-04-20
Pool	Generic object pooling component.		2.13.1	2026-01-02
RDF	Common implementation of RDF 1.1 that could be implemented by systems on the JVM.		0.5.0	2017-12-23
RNG	Implementations of random numbers generators.		1.7	2026-04-21
Secure XML	Provides secure-by-default JAXP factory creation, abstracting over implementation-specific XXE securing differences between the stock JDK and external JAXP implementations.		1.7	2026-04-21
SCXML	An implementation of the State Chart XML specification aimed at creating and maintaining a Java SCXML engine. It is capable of executing a state machine defined using a SCXML document, and abstracts out the environment interfaces.		0.9	2008-12-01
Statistics	Utilities for statistical applications.		1.3	2026-05-05
Text	Apache Commons Text is a library focused on algorithms working on strings.		1.15.0	2025-12-07
Validator	Framework to define validators and validation rules in an xml file.		1.11.0	2026-07-31
VFS	Virtual File System component for treating files, FTP, SMB, ZIP and such like as a single logical file system.		2.10.0	2025-02-14
Weaver	Provides an easy way to enhance (weave) compiled bytecode.		2.0	2018-09-07

The Commons Sandbox

The Commons project also contains a workspace that is open to all Apache committers. It's a place to try out new ideas and prepare for inclusion into the Commons portion of the project or into another Apache project. Users are free to experiment with the components developed in the sandbox, but sandbox components will not necessarily be maintained, particularly in their current state.

See here for Sandbox components.

The Commons Dormant

These are Commons components that have been deemed inactive since they have seen little recent development activity. If you wish to use any of these components, you must build them yourselves. It is best to assume that these components will not be released in the near future.

See here for Dormant components.

Where do I get releases?

The individual components have independent releases. Some releases for some components may be available only through the mirroring system. Some releases for some components (typically the older ones) are not available through the mirroring system.

See the individual websites listed above for the specific downloads, or use the Releases menu option.

How do I contribute, give feedback, fix bugs and so on?

The Commons project really needs and appreciates any contributions, including documentation help, source code and feedback.

• Discussion occurs on the Commons mailing list.
• Commons Proper components are all now maintained using individual Git repositories. The code can be accessed online using GitHub (please see the links in the above listing). Or using a Git client (links as above).
• Access to the SVN commons/sandbox repository is available both online and with a svn client.
• Access to the SVN commons/dormant repository is available both online and with a svn client.

Related Components @Apache

The Commons HttpClient project used to be a part of Commons, but is now part of Apache HttpComponents - see Jakarta Commons HttpClient