Standalone

Using the standalone version is very similar to using the full blown Gradle plugin, the only difference is that the standalone version does not include an embedded Gradle (nor should it) but instead wraps around the plugin in pure Groovy, the only main noticeable difference is the output of running tasks (since there is no gradle to print lifecycle stages):

$ java -jar liquibase-standalone.jar tasks 
2011-11-21 02:48:24,668 INFO - Got arguments [tasks]
tasks - Prints the list of available tasks and input parameters.

update - Applying all changesets with given contexts to the db
Can be invoked by providing either of the following options:
update -Pcontexts=[String value]
update -PchangesToApply=[Integer value] -Pcontexts=[String value]
 

Another feature that the standalone version has is a log file (liquibase.log) which is used for tracing in deployment.