enforcing maven 3 - when to use maven enforcer plugin? when to use pom prerequisites element?

Question

The two main approaches for enforcing maven 3 seem to be:

• maven-enforcer-plugin, and
• pom.xml element.

Answer 1

The Maven pom prerequisites approach may be more appropriate for smaller, simpler projects. This approach will be lighter weight as it will not require the maven-enforcer-plugin to be downloaded.

The maven-enforcer-plugin approach may be more suitable if you have children projects that you wish to inherit the maven 3 requirement from the parent. pom prerequisites is not inherited by children projects.