Entity vs DTO vs Model — Stop Using These Terms Interchangeably

Do you ever confuse yourself with the terms Entity, Model, and DTO? Sometimes you might hear your lecturer say that you can call an Entity a Model, but is that really true? They may sound similar, but they are actually quite different. Let's understand what they really are and what they actually do. Entity An Entity represents a database table using annotations like @entity. Think of it as a real table in your database. Example: Student Table @Entity @Table(name = "students") public class StudentEntity { @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY) private Long id; private String name; private String email; private String password; } An Entity is used by JPA/Hibernate. It is tightly coupled to the database and typically contains all fields, including sensitive ones such as passwords. DTO (Data Transfer Object) A DTO is used to transfer data between layers. It is not directly connected to the database. It is a safer, filtered version of your data that you send to the frontend