Apache Ivy is atransitivepackage manager. It is a sub-project of theApache Ant project, with which Ivy works to resolve project dependencies. An externalXML file defines project dependencies and lists the resources necessary to build a project. Ivy then resolves and downloads resources from an artifact repository: either a private repository or one publicly available on theInternet.
To some degree, it competes withApache Maven, which also manages dependencies. However, Maven is a complete build tool, whereas Ivy focuses purely on managing transitive dependencies.
Jayasoft first created Ivy in September, 2004, with Xavier Hanin serving as the principalarchitect anddeveloper of the project. Jayasoft moved hosting of Ivy (then at version 1.4.1) to Apache Incubator in October 2006. Since then, the project has undergone package renaming to reflect its association with theApache Software Foundation. Package names prefixes of the formfr.jayasoft.ivy have becomeorg.apache.ivy prefixes.
Ivy graduated from the Apache Incubator in October, 2007. As of 2009 it functions as a sub-project ofApache Ant. Over time, Ivy has been used insbt (until sbt 1.3),[2]grails (until 2014),[3]gradle (until 2012),[4] andJenkins.
IvyDE, anEclipse extension for Ivy, was archived in November 2023.[5]
