I just saw that the 4th candidate got released for Hibernate 5. What's new in 5 compared to earlier versions?
Some exciting features has been added/enhanced in Hibernate 5.x. Have a quick look.
Hibernate Search transparently indexes your objects and offers fast regular, full-text and geolocation search. Ease of use and easy clustering are core.
For more details on Hibernate Search view this.
Hibernate Validator comes with a handful of built-in validation rules like Email, Length, NotBlank etc.
Express validation rules in a standardized way using annotation-based constraints and benefit from transparent integration with a wide variety of frameworks.
For more details on Hibernate Validator view this.
Java 8 date/time data types (JSR 310) are supported and can be validated via @Past and @Future. Also Optional and JavaFX types are supported via an improved ValidatedValueUnwrapper.
Just released the first stable version.
New bootstrapping API - better determinism, better integration
A few other things:
Check Hibernate ORM Roadmap for more details.