Why MyBatis-Flex Outperforms MyBatis-Plus: Features, Benchmarks, and Quick Start

1. What is MyBatis-Flex?

MyBatis-Flex is an elegant MyBatis enhancement framework that is lightweight, highly performant, and flexible. It allows easy connection to any database and its built‑in QueryWrapper greatly reduces the amount of SQL you need to write and the chance of errors.

In short, MyBatis‑Flex can significantly improve development efficiency and experience.

2. Key Features of MyBatis-Flex

1. Lightweight: No third‑party dependencies or interceptors; implemented via SqlProvider with no SQL parsing at runtime, resulting in high performance, easy debugging, and better control.

2. Flexible: Supports CRUD and pagination on entities; provides Db + Row tools for operations without entity classes; built‑in QueryWrapper enables multi‑table, join, and sub‑query scenarios.

3. Powerful: Supports any relational database, extensible dialects, composite primary keys, logical deletion, optimistic locking, data masking, auditing, data filling, and more.

3. Comparison with Similar Frameworks

3.1 Feature Comparison

Feature

MyBatis-Flex

MyBatis-Plus

Fluent-MyBatis

Basic CRUD on entity

✅

✅

✅

Pagination query

✅

✅

✅

Pagination total cache

✅

✅

❌

Pagination without SQL parsing

✅

❌

✅

Multi‑table query (multiple tables)

✅

❌

❌

Multi‑table join (left, inner, etc.)

✅

❌

✅

Union / Union All

✅

❌

✅

Single primary key

✅

✅

✅

Multiple ID generation strategies

✅

✅

✅

Composite primary key support

✅

❌

❌

Field typeHandler configuration

✅

✅

✅

No third‑party dependencies

✅

❌

❌

QueryWrapper RPC transmission support

✅

❌

Unknown

Logical deletion

✅

✅

✅

Optimistic lock

✅

✅

✅

SQL audit

✅

❌

❌

Data filling

✅

✔️ (paid)

✅

Data masking

✅

✔️ (paid)

❌

Field permission

✅

✔️ (paid)

❌

Field encryption

✅

✔️ (paid)

❌

Dictionary rewrite

✅

✔️ (paid)

❌

Db + Row

✅

❌

❌

Entity listener

✅

❌

❌

Multi‑data source support

✅

Requires other frameworks or paid

❌

Spring transaction management support

✅

❌

❌

Non‑Spring project support

✅

❌

❌

Multi‑tenant

✅

✅

❌

Dynamic table name

✅

✅

❌

Dynamic schema

✅

❌

❌

3.2 Performance Comparison

Single‑record query speed of MyBatis‑Flex is about 5‑10× that of MyBatis‑Plus.

Querying 10 records is about 5‑10× faster.

Pagination query speed is about 5‑10× faster.

Data update speed is about 5‑10× faster.

Detailed benchmark: https://mybatis-flex.com/zh/intro/benchmark.html

4. Supported Databases

MyBatis‑Flex supports the following databases and can be extended with custom dialects.

Database

Description

mysql

MySQL database

mariadb

MariaDB database

oracle

Oracle 11g and below

oracle12c

Oracle 12c and above

db2

DB2 database

hsql

HSQL database

sqlite

SQLite database

postgresql

PostgreSQL database

sqlserver2005

SQLServer2005 database

sqlserver

SQLServer database

dm

DaMeng database

xugu

XuGu database

kingbasees

KingbaseES database

phoenix

Phoenix HBase database

gauss

Gauss database

clickhouse

ClickHouse database

gbase

GBase (Nanda General) database

gbase-8s

GBase 8s database

oscar

Oscar database

sybase

Sybase ASE database

OceanBase

OceanBase database

Firebird

Firebird database

derby

Derby database

highgo

HighGo database

cubrid

CUBRID database

goldilocks

Goldilocks database

csiidb

CSIIDB database

hana

SAP HANA database

impala

Impala database

vertica

Vertica database

xcloud

XCloud database

redshift

Amazon Redshift database

openGauss

Huawei openGauss database

TDengine

TDengine database

informix

Informix database

greenplum

Greenplum database

uxdb

UXDB database

5. Quick Start

Step 1: Create Database Table

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `tb_account` (
  `id` INTEGER PRIMARY KEY auto_increment,
  `user_name` VARCHAR(100),
  `age` INTEGER,
  `birthday` DATETIME
);
INSERT INTO tb_account(id, user_name, age, birthday) VALUES
  (1, '张三', 18, '2020-01-11'),
  (2, '李四', 19, '2021-03-21');

Step 2: Create Spring Boot Project and Add Maven Dependencies

Tip: Use Spring Initializr to quickly generate a Spring Boot project.

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mybatis-flex</groupId>
        <artifactId>mybatis-flex-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.3</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.zaxxer</groupId>
        <artifactId>HikariCP</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- for test only -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Step 3: Configure Spring Boot

# DataSource Config
spring:
  datasource:
    url: jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/flex_test
    username: root
    password: 12345678

Add @MapperScan("com.mybatisflex.test.mapper") to the main application class.

@SpringBootApplication
@MapperScan("com.mybatisflex.test.mapper")
public class MybatisFlexTestApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(MybatisFlexTestApplication.class, args);
    }
}

Step 4: Define Entity and Mapper

@Data
@Table("tb_account")
public class Account {
    @Id(keyType = KeyType.Auto)
    private Long id;
    private String userName;
    private Integer age;
    private Date birthday;
}

public interface AccountMapper extends BaseMapper<Account> {
}

Step 5: Use the Framework

@SpringBootTest
class MybatisFlexTestApplicationTests {
    @Autowired
    private AccountMapper accountMapper;

    @Test
    void contextLoads() {
        QueryWrapper queryWrapper = QueryWrapper.create()
                .select()
                .where(ACCOUNT.AGE.eq(18));
        Account account = accountMapper.selectOneByQuery(queryWrapper);
        System.out.println(account);
    }
}

Console output example:

Account(id=1, userName=张三, age=18, birthday=Sat Jan 11 00:00:00 CST 2020)

Overall, MyBatis‑Flex combines the advantages of MyBatis‑Plus, jOOQ, and Fluent‑MyBatis, providing a powerful and flexible ORM solution.