Differences Between Entities and DTOs

Entities and DTOs have different roles and characteristics. Entities represent real-world objects or concepts within the domain and often correspond directly to database tables. They incorporate ORM annotations, establish relationships with other entities, and can contain business logic. On the other hand, DTOs act as data carriers without any business logic. They are used for data transfer between applications or parts of the same application. DTOs are often made immutable, include validation annotations, and use JSON mapping annotations.