Project - OpenMRS Standalone GSOC2025

[jonathan (Mutagubya Jonathan)]

According to @ibacher here

@ibacher

You can get a high-level overview of the standalone on the Wiki. The chief difficulty is creating something that a user can double-click on which will install and configure a suitable database. Previously, MySQL provided a JDBC driver called MXJ that would automatically start an embedded MySQL instance from a JDBC connection URL, which was key to making the standalone work. However, that product has been discontinued (so no longer receiving updates) and there were never binary versions for ARM-based processors (it was discontinued a long time ago, before ARM-based machines were popular). Basically, this project needs to either come up with a way of replacing that (there are a few options), rework OpenMRS to be able to run on an embedded Java-based database (we already use H2 for integration tests, so it’s probably easy).

Could using H2 + Spring Boot be ideal for this project?

Comparison Table: Old vs. New Standalone

Feature	Old Standalone (MXJ)	New Standalone (H2 + Spring Boot)
Database	Embedded MySQL (MXJ)	Embedded H2
Application Server	Embedded Tomcat	Embedded Tomcat (via Spring Boot)
ARM Support	No	Yes
Version Selection of Openmrs (Platform,RefApp,03)	Single version	Multiple versions via script
Requirements	Java only	Java only
Maintenance	Discontinued, unsupported	Current, community-supported