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How does Gradle's incremental build and build cache mechanism achieve significantly faster rebuild times compared to Maven's default behavior?

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Gradle tracks fine-grained inputs and outputs for every task (source files, dependency versions, configuration), using content hashing to detect whether a task's actual inputs have changed since the last execution -- if unchanged, Gradle skips re-executing that task entirely (marking it UP-TO-DATE), and with the build cache enabled, can even reuse outputs from a previous build (potentially from a different machine or CI run) if the computed cache key matches, avoiding redundant compilation/test execution entirely; Maven's simpler execution model generally re-runs each bound goal on every invocation without this fine-grained incremental awareness, though Maven has been adding some incremental capabilities over time.
// gradle.properties -- enabling build caching
org.gradle.caching=true
org.gradle.parallel=true

// A task run twice with no source changes:
// First run: ":compileJava" executes normally
// Second run: ":compileJava UP-TO-DATE" -- skipped entirely, saving time
Real-world example A large monorepo with hundreds of modules adopts Gradle's remote build cache shared across the team and CI, so a developer pulling the latest code and building locally can reuse compilation outputs already produced by a teammate's or CI's earlier build of the same unchanged code, cutting local build times from minutes to seconds.

Common follow-ups: What are the correctness risks of build caching if a task's inputs/outputs aren't declared completely and accurately?;How does Gradle's daemon process further contribute to faster subsequent build invocations?

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All 15 Build Tools: Maven & Gradle questions