# JaCoCo vs Cobertura

> Use JaCoCo. Cobertura's last release is from 2015 and its Maven plugin fails on a current JDK. What each measures, and how to move a Maven build across.

Web page: https://supercov.com/compare/jacoco-vs-cobertura · Published 2026-10-12
All Supercov pages for agents: https://supercov.com/llms.txt · Full text: https://supercov.com/llms-full.txt

## JaCoCo or Cobertura?

Use JaCoCo. Cobertura's last release, 2.1.1, is from February 2015, and its
Maven plugin does not run on a current JDK. JaCoCo is maintained: 0.8.15, from
June 2026, supports Java 26. The name Cobertura lives on mostly as an XML
report format that CI tools read.

## What happens when you run each

The same Maven project, one class and two JUnit tests, on JDK 26:

```sh
mvn test
```

With `jacoco-maven-plugin` 0.8.15 this wrote a report: 8/8 instructions, 3/4
branches, 3/3 lines.

```sh
mvn cobertura:cobertura
```

With `cobertura-maven-plugin` 2.7, the latest, the build failed before any
class was instrumented:

```text
Could not find artifact com.sun:tools:jar
```

The plugin depends on `tools.jar`, which the JDK stopped shipping in Java 9.

## How they differ

| | JaCoCo | Cobertura |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Latest release | 0.8.15, June 2026 | 2.1.1, February 2015 |
| How it measures | A Java agent instruments classes as they load | Rewrites compiled classes before the tests run |
| What it counts | Instructions, branches, lines, methods, classes | Lines and branches |
| Build tools | Maven, Gradle's built-in `jacoco` plugin, Ant, command line | Maven and Ant |

JaCoCo's [counters](https://www.jacoco.org/jacoco/trunk/doc/counters.html) come
from bytecode, so it needs no source changes and works for Kotlin and other
JVM languages too.

## Moving from Cobertura to JaCoCo

Replace the plugin in your `pom.xml`:

```xml
<plugin>
  <groupId>org.jacoco</groupId>
  <artifactId>jacoco-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>0.8.15</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <goals><goal>prepare-agent</goal></goals>
    </execution>
    <execution>
      <id>report</id>
      <phase>test</phase>
      <goals><goal>report</goal></goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>
```

The report lands in `target/site/jacoco`, as HTML, XML and CSV. Expect the
percentages to change: the tools count lines and branches differently, so set
new thresholds instead of carrying the old ones over.

If a CI step still expects Cobertura XML, check whether it reads JaCoCo XML
too. GitLab's coverage view and Codecov read both. See
[lcov vs Cobertura](https://supercov.com/compare/lcov-vs-cobertura.md) for the format.

## What Supercov adds

```sh
npx supercov -- mvn test
npx supercov runs latest gaps
```

JaCoCo reports a whole run. Supercov runs the same Maven or Gradle command and
records coverage per test, with MC/DC and assertion coverage. On the project
above it reported 3/3 lines, 4/4 branches and 1/2 MC/DC conditions: no test
tried a signed-in session that had expired. It can also write Cobertura XML
with `npx supercov runs report --format cobertura`.

For a wider comparison, see
[Java coverage: JaCoCo, OpenClover, and Supercov](https://supercov.com/compare/java-code-coverage.md).


Example evidence: [fixture source, commands and recorded results (JSON)](https://supercov.com/downloads/tool-comparisons-2026-10-12.json). Measured October 12, 2026 with Supercov 4.3.0. These small examples are not a performance benchmark or a general conformance test.