Criteria Api是Hibernate的一个很好的概念。根据我的观点，这些是我们可以区分HQL和Criteria Api的少数点

HQL is to perform both select and non-select operations on the data, but Criteria is only for selecting the data, we cannot perform non-select operations using criteria. HQL is suitable for executing Static Queries, where as Criteria is suitable for executing Dynamic Queries HQL doesn’t support pagination concept, but we can achieve pagination with Criteria. Criteria used to take more time to execute than HQL. With Criteria we are safe with SQL Injection because of its dynamic query generation but in HQL as your queries are either fixed or parametrized, there is no safe from SQL Injection

We used mainly Criteria in our application in the beginning but after it was replaced with HQL due to the performance issues. Mainly we are using very complex queries with several joins which leads to multiple queries in Criteria but is very optimized in HQL. The case is that we use just several propeties on specific object and not complete objects. With Criteria the problem was also string concatenation. Let say if you need to display name and surname of the user in HQL it is quite easy (name || ' ' || surname) but in Crteria this is not possible. To overcome this we used ResultTransormers, where there were methods where such concatenation was implemented for needed result. Today we mainly use HQL like this:

String hql = "select " +
            "c.uuid as uuid," +
            "c.name as name," +
            "c.objective as objective," +
            "c.startDate as startDate," +
            "c.endDate as endDate," +
            "c.description as description," +
            "s.status as status," +
            "t.type as type " +
            "from " + Campaign.class.getName() + " c " +
            "left join c.type t " +
            "left join c.status s";

Query query =  hibernateTemplate.getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession().getSession(EntityMode.MAP).createQuery(hql);
query.setResultTransformer(Transformers.ALIAS_TO_ENTITY_MAP);
return query.list();

因此，在本例中，返回的记录是所需属性的映射。

Criteria api提供了一个SQL和HQL都不提供的独特特性。ie。它允许对查询进行编译时检查。

HQL更容易阅读，更容易使用Eclipse Hibernate插件等工具进行调试，也更容易记录日志。条件查询更适合构建动态查询，其中许多行为都是在运行时确定的。如果你不知道SQL，我可以理解使用Criteria查询，但总的来说，如果我知道我想要什么，我更喜欢HQL。

条件是指定利用第二级查询缓存中的特殊优化的自然键查找的唯一方法。HQL没有任何方法来指定必要的提示。

你可以在这里找到更多信息:

http://tech.puredanger.com/2009/07/10/hibernate-query-cache/

我不想在这里白费口舌，但有一点很重要，那就是Criteria查询现在已被弃用。使用HQL。