I've been looking at Jackson, but is seems I would have to convert the Map to JSON, and then the resulting JSON to the POJO.
Is there a way to convert a Map directly to a POJO?
Well, you can achieve that with Jackson, too. (and it seems to be more comfortable since you were considering using jackson).
Use ObjectMapper's convertValue method:
final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper(); // jackson's objectmapper
final MyPojo pojo = mapper.convertValue(map, MyPojo.class);
No need to convert into JSON string or something else; direct conversion does much faster.
 
    
    A solution with Gson:
Gson gson = new Gson();
JsonElement jsonElement = gson.toJsonTree(map);
MyPojo pojo = gson.fromJson(jsonElement, MyPojo.class);
 
    
     
    
    ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
// Use this if all properties are not in the class
objectMapper.configure(DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES, false);
final MyPojo pojo = objectMapper.convertValue(map, MyPojo.class);
Same as the first answer but I got an error using that because I don't want all properties of the Map converted to the class. I also found objectMapper.configure(DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES, false); as the solution.
 
    
     
    
    if you have generic types in your class you should use TypeReference with convertValue().
final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
final MyPojo<MyGenericType> pojo = mapper.convertValue(map, new TypeReference<MyPojo<MyGenericType>>() {});
Also you can use that to convert a pojo to java.util.Map back.
final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
final Map<String, Object> map = mapper.convertValue(pojo, new TypeReference<Map<String, Object>>() {});
 
    
    Yes, its definitely possible to avoid the intermediate conversion to JSON. Using a deep-copy tool like Dozer you can convert the map directly to a POJO. Here is a simplistic example:
Example POJO:
public class MyPojo implements Serializable {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private String id;
    private String name;
    private Integer age;
    private Double savings;
    public MyPojo() {
        super();
    }
    // Getters/setters
    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return String.format(
                "MyPojo[id = %s, name = %s, age = %s, savings = %s]", getId(),
                getName(), getAge(), getSavings());
    }
}
Sample conversion code:
public class CopyTest {
    @Test
    public void testCopyMapToPOJO() throws Exception {
        final Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>(4);
        map.put("id", "5");
        map.put("name", "Bob");
        map.put("age", "23");
        map.put("savings", "2500.39");
        map.put("extra", "foo");
        final DozerBeanMapper mapper = new DozerBeanMapper();
        final MyPojo pojo = mapper.map(map, MyPojo.class);
        System.out.println(pojo);
    }
}
Output:
MyPojo[id = 5, name = Bob, age = 23, savings = 2500.39]
Note: If you change your source map to a Map<String, Object> then you can copy over arbitrarily deep nested properties (with Map<String, String> you only get one level).
 
    
    I have tested both Jackson and BeanUtils and found out that BeanUtils is  much faster.
In my machine(Windows8.1 , JDK1.7) I got this result.
BeanUtils t2-t1 = 286
Jackson t2-t1 = 2203
public class MainMapToPOJO {
public static final int LOOP_MAX_COUNT = 1000;
public static void main(String[] args) {
    Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>();
    map.put("success", true);
    map.put("data", "testString");
    runBeanUtilsPopulate(map);
    runJacksonMapper(map);
}
private static void runBeanUtilsPopulate(Map<String, Object> map) {
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP_MAX_COUNT; i++) {
        try {
            TestClass bean = new TestClass();
            BeanUtils.populate(bean, map);
        } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("BeanUtils t2-t1 = " + String.valueOf(t2 - t1));
}
private static void runJacksonMapper(Map<String, Object> map) {
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP_MAX_COUNT; i++) {
        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        TestClass testClass = mapper.convertValue(map, TestClass.class);
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("Jackson t2-t1 = " + String.valueOf(t2 - t1));
}}
 
    
    The answers provided so far using Jackson are so good, but still you could have a util function to help you convert different POJOs as follows:
    public static <T> T convert(Map<String, Object> aMap, Class<T> t) {
        try {
            return objectMapper
                    .convertValue(aMap, objectMapper.getTypeFactory().constructType(t));
        } catch (Exception e) {
            log.error("converting failed! aMap: {}, class: {}", getJsonString(aMap), t.getClass().getSimpleName(), e);
        }
        return null;
    }
 
    
    convert Map to POJO example.Notice the Map key contains underline and field variable is hump.
User.class POJO
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonProperty;
import lombok.Data;
@Data
public class User {
    @JsonProperty("user_name")
    private String userName;
    @JsonProperty("pass_word")
    private String passWord;
}
The App.class test the example
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
public class App {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map<String, String> info = new HashMap<>();
        info.put("user_name", "Q10Viking");
        info.put("pass_word", "123456");
        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        User user = mapper.convertValue(info, User.class);
        System.out.println("-------------------------------");
        System.out.println(user);
    }
}
/**output
-------------------------------
User(userName=Q10Viking, passWord=123456)
 */
 
    
    @Hamedz if use many data, use Jackson to convert light data, use apache... TestCase:
import java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import org.apache.commons.beanutils.BeanUtils;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import lombok.AllArgsConstructor;
import lombok.Data;
import lombok.NoArgsConstructor;
public class TestPerf {
    public static final int LOOP_MAX_COUNT = 1000;
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>();
        map.put("success", true);
        map.put("number", 1000);
        map.put("longer", 1000L);
        map.put("doubler", 1000D);
        map.put("data1", "testString");
        map.put("data2", "testString");
        map.put("data3", "testString");
        map.put("data4", "testString");
        map.put("data5", "testString");
        map.put("data6", "testString");
        map.put("data7", "testString");
        map.put("data8", "testString");
        map.put("data9", "testString");
        map.put("data10", "testString");
        runBeanUtilsPopulate(map);
        runJacksonMapper(map);
    }
    private static void runBeanUtilsPopulate(Map<String, Object> map) {
        long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
        for (int i = 0; i < LOOP_MAX_COUNT; i++) {
            try {
                TestClass bean = new TestClass();
                BeanUtils.populate(bean, map);
            } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            } catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
        System.out.println("BeanUtils t2-t1 = " + String.valueOf(t2 - t1));
    }
    private static void runJacksonMapper(Map<String, Object> map) {
        long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
        for (int i = 0; i < LOOP_MAX_COUNT; i++) {
            ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
            TestClass testClass = mapper.convertValue(map, TestClass.class);
        }
        long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
        System.out.println("Jackson t2-t1 = " + String.valueOf(t2 - t1));
    }
    @Data
    @AllArgsConstructor
    @NoArgsConstructor
    public static class TestClass {
        private Boolean success;
        private Integer number;
        private Long longer;
        private Double doubler;
        private String data1;
        private String data2;
        private String data3;
        private String data4;
        private String data5;
        private String data6;
        private String data7;
        private String data8;
        private String data9;
        private String data10;
    }
}
