Maven is a project management utility that can be used to develop Mule projects. Mule provides built-in Maven functionality including building Mule apps with Maven in Anypoint Studio, enabling Maven support for existing Studio projects, and importing Maven projects into Studio. The muleesb-maven-plugin and Maven-Mule ESB plugin provide Maven integration, allowing development of Mule apps from within Maven. The document provides steps for building a simple HTTP request-response app with Maven in Studio, enabling Maven support for an existing Studio project, and importing an existing Maven project into Studio.