maven plugins stored where

Question

Where are maven plugins stored? in the local repository as well? what happens if you build your application with eclipse? does it store the plugins inside the eclipse/plugins folder or still in the local repository?

Solution

Where are maven plugins stored? in the local repository as well?

Yes. Plugins are downloaded from a remote repository and stored in the local repository. The exact final location will thus depend on the groupId of the plugins (the core plugins end up in ~/.m2/repository/org/apache/maven/plugins where ~/ stands for your home directory for example in windows server 2016 it is stored under this path C:\Users\YourUserName\.m2)

what happens if you build your application with eclipse?

Hmm... Nothing special.

Does it store the plugins inside the eclipse/plugins folder or still in the local repository?

No, Maven (embedded or external) uses the location defined in the <localRepository> element of the global or user settings (which defaults to ~/.m2/repository), unless you overrode the Local Repository path in Window > Preferences > Maven > User Settings.