The openjpa-maven-plugin by default uses OpenJPA with exactly the same version as the plugin itself. If you like to use an older OpenJPA version (which doesn't have an org.apache.openjpa:openjpa-maven-plugin), you can just override the plugin dependencies
<project> [...] <build> [...] <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.openjpa</groupId> <artifactId>openjpa-maven-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.2.0</version> <executions> <execution> <id>enhancer</id> <phase>process-classes</phase> <goals> <goal>enhance</goal> </goals> </execution> <!-- Use your own openjpa dependencies --> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.openjpa</groupId> <artifactId>openjpa-kernel</artifactId> <version>${oldopenjpa.version}</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.openjpa</groupId> <artifactId>openjpa-jdbc</artifactId> <version>${oldopenjpa.version}</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.openjpa</groupId> <artifactId>openjpa-persistence</artifactId> <version>${oldopenjpa.version}</version> </dependency> <dependency> <!-- needed for db specific hooks --> <groupId>org.apache.openjpa</groupId> <artifactId>openjpa-persistence-jdbc</artifactId> <version>${oldopenjpa.version}</version> </dependency> </dependencies> </executions> </plugin> [...] </plugins> [...] </build> [...] </project>