Install grails with Homebrew, chocolatey, MacPorts, Nix, scoop

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• grails
• grails-forge-cli
• grails-shell-cli
• grails_forge_cli_completion

Project history

The Apache Grails project history says work began in July 2005, followed by a 0.1 release on March 29, 2006 and a 1.0 release on February 5, 2008. Its early appeal came from bringing Ruby on Rails-style productivity to the Java and Groovy ecosystem.

Grails passed through several stewardship phases: G2One, SpringSource, Object Computing, the Grails Foundation and Unity Foundation, and then the Apache Software Foundation. Apache described the ASF migration as an 18-month process starting in late spring 2024 alongside Grails 7 development.

The ASF move also changed package coordinates for Grails artifacts to org.apache.grails and consolidated many repositories into a single code base to satisfy ASF policy and speed release work.

Adoption history

Grails gained adoption among JVM teams that wanted rapid web application development without leaving Java infrastructure. Its docs emphasize productivity, DRY conventions, Groovy, Spring Boot, Hibernate/GORM, and plugin-based extension.

Package managers matter for Grails because the CLI creates and runs applications, invokes scaffolding and build tasks, and anchors a developer's local JVM web framework toolchain. Homebrew, SDKMAN, and similar managers made it easier to install the framework outside IDE-specific setup.

How it is used

A typical Grails package user installs the CLI, creates or opens a Grails app, edits build.gradle and grails-app/conf configuration, and runs framework commands to build, test, run, generate, or package an application.

The framework is used for full-stack server-rendered apps, REST APIs, and JVM services that benefit from Groovy productivity while retaining Spring Boot, Jakarta EE, Hibernate, and Gradle integration.

Why package nerds care

Grails is significant because it is a framework package whose executable is the front door to an entire application layout. Its package has to fit JVM versioning, Gradle behavior, shell completion, generated project files, and long-lived enterprise upgrade paths.

The Apache transition is especially relevant for packagers because artifact coordinates, source distribution rules, release signing, and repository layout all affect downstream formulae and build reproducibility.

Timeline

• 2005-07: Work on Grails began.
• 2006-03-29: Grails 0.1 release.
• 2008-02-05: Grails 1.0 release.
• 2019-07-11: Grails 4 GA release announced.
• 2024: ASF migration began alongside Grails 7 development.
• 2025-06-10: Grails 7.0.0-M4 became the first Grails release under ASF incubation.
• 2025-10-07: Apache Grails graduated to an ASF Top-Level Project.

Related projects

• Apache Groovy is the language foundation.
• Spring Boot, Spring Framework, Jakarta EE, Hibernate, GORM, Gradle, and Grails Forge are core parts of the Grails ecosystem.
• Ruby on Rails is the historical convention-over-configuration comparison point.

Sources

• https://grails.apache.org/blog/2025-06-10-grails-7-m4.html
• https://grails.apache.org/blog/2025-10-07-apache-grails-graduation-top-level-project.html
• https://grails.apache.org/docs/latest/guide/single.html
• https://grails.apache.org/docs/latest/guide/upgrading.html
• https://grails.apache.org/documentation.html