Most Popular Java Frameworks of 2022

Introduction

It is 2022 and Java is still ruling the tech industry with being in the top 5 most popular programming languages in the world. Among various reasons for this immense popularity, the availability of Java frameworks is an important one.

Thanks to some exceptional Java frameworks, Java developers do not have to write their programs from scratch. There are many excellent Java frameworks available out there that can be used for producing Java web and mobile applications, microservices, as well as REST APIs.

The only concern is that the abundance of Java frameworks often makes the selection process very overwhelming for many Java developers. To keep things short and crisp, we will be exploring the 5 best and most useful Java frameworks that you should be using in 2022.

Java frameworks

For starters, Java frameworks are software libraries primarily created to make the process of writing a Java application easier and faster. Java frameworks are comprised of pre-written codes, classes, templates, components, and other structures that you can easily use while developing your Java application.

Java frameworks were created to help developers focus on the business logic of their applications instead of spending their time in writing basic functionality such as handling exceptions or writing basic routines. Reputed Java frameworks are also well-tested and enforce the use of best coding practices to make your application robust and stable. ?However, all these Java frameworks are not targeted to all Java developers, they all do not serve the same purpose, which makes the selection process very subjective.

Some Java frameworks are designed to develop an enterprise-level application, whereas some can only be considered as java frontend or java backend frameworks. Some Java frameworks just offer the features for some additional tasks and are not sufficient for developing a complete application that is why it is very important to understand what different Java frameworks offer.

Top 5 Java frameworks

Following are the 5 hand-picked Java frameworks you can use.

1.?Spring Framework: A framework for Enterprise-level Java applications

The Spring Framework is certainly among the most used and well-known Java frameworks. With a huge ecosystem and an active community, it is a great option for building enterprise-level Java applications, web services or even microservices. It was initially just a dependency injection tool, but with time, it has now developed into a full-scale Java application framework. It provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model that can also be used for all generic tasks like exception handling and database connection setup.

The Spring Framework is designed upon the inversion of control (IoC) software design principle. It allows direct control for the custom-written code, unlike traditional programming models where the custom code has to call into other libraries for implementation. Therefore, developers can write loosely coupled modules for their applications. Besides Java, developers can also use this framework with Kotlin and Groovy, both of which can run on the Java Virtual Machine.

While the Spring Framework is ideal for building enterprise-level Java applications, it is also a bit difficult to learn. It is a vast framework that intends to provide a feature for every task in an enterprise-level application and it also supports many different platforms. As a result, the configuration, setup, building and deployment processes, all require additional steps you might not have to perform in other Java frameworks. This gets even more unnecessary when you are working on a smaller project.

2.?Blade: A light-weight MVC framework

The blade is a lightweight and high-performance MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework. It allows users to build fast web applications very efficiently. The creators also prioritized the user-friendly features as a Java developer can easily understand the whole framework in just a single day, making it extremely easy to use as compared to other Java frameworks.

It is a versatile framework with comprehensive plug-in support, as well as configuration files and coding files. It also has a robust pattern and is compatible with JDK 1.6 and all higher versions. The Netty web server and template engine are also built into the framework. It has a very minimal footprint as the source code is hardly 500 KB in size.

Blade users also get access to a RESTful-style routing interface and can deploy their application as a Gradle or Maven project. It also comes with built-in security features include CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) and XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) defence system.

3.?Struts: MVC framework for enterprise-level Java applications

Struts is a robust open-source Java framework for building web applications, designed upon the MVC model and extends the JSP API. It is a full-fledged Java web application framework developed by the Apache Software Foundation. Despite being a bit older framework, it is still widely used by many Java developers.

Struts is a mature platform with a huge community and are often compared with the Spring Framework due to its various features. It allows its users to create enterprise-level Java applications that are scalable and maintainable over time. Struts separate the View, Controller and the Model (data) and provide the binding between each through a configuration file struts-config.xml. It has a plugin-based architecture that allows extending the framework to fulfil different needs of a project. Struts plugins are basic JAR packages which mean, they are portable and can be easily added to the classpath of your application.

This framework can also be integrated with other Java frameworks that allow users to perform tasks that are not available by the platform. For example, you can use Hibernate plugin for object-relational mapping or the Spring plugin for dependency injection in your application. You can also integrate other client-side technologies like Jakarta Server Pages to build the frontend of your application. However, it is also to be noted that Struts does not provide any security mechanism and it would not be a good option if you are planning to create server-side components that can render on the frontend as its architecture is not ideal for that.

4.?Tapestry: Component-oriented framework for scalable web applications

Tapestry is one of the component-based Java frameworks. Similar to Struts, Tapestry is also a project of the Apache Software Foundation. It allows developers to create scalable Java web applications. Its best feature is to let Java developers write Tapestry pages and components as plain old Java objects (POJOs), allowing them to access the whole Java ecosystem from the framework.

Being a scalable framework, Tapestry scales smoothly on single servers as well as server clusters. Apps built on Tapestry run way faster on the web browsers, thanks to the practices like integrated GZip content compression, client-side caching, use of concurrent threads, JavaScript aggregation and compression. Along with Java, it also supports Groovy and Scala and it can also be integrated with various other Java frameworks like Spring. Tapestry is a performance-oriented Java framework as it comes with features like live class reloading, exception reporting, Ajax support, as well as built-in components and templates.

Tapestry is also considered a very developer-friendly framework. The built-in utilities prove to be very helpful for test-driven development (TDD) and it also comes with support for the Selenium testing framework.

5.?Vaadin: a framework for targeting UX and accessibility

Vaadin is a unique option in this list of Java frameworks. It is a platform for streamlined Java development. It allows Java programmers to build Java web applications featuring customizable components with a primary focus on UX and accessibility.

Vaadin approaches web app development like never before. Unlike other Java frameworks, Java developers get direct access to the DOM (Document Object Model) from the Java Virtual Machine. With the recent release, the Vaadin makers have divided the previously monolithic framework into two parts. Now, they offer a lightweight Java framework known as Vaadin Flow that controls the internals along with the UI components set.

Vaadin Flow works with a high-level Java API for handling all the technical aspects of the application. As Flow runs on the Java Virtual Machine, it gives all access to the entire Java ecosystem, Along with Java, Flow also lets you write your application in Kotlin or Scala.

The UI components follow all the new and improved web and accessibility standards. These components can be easily integrated with any frontend framework of your choice like React, Angular, or Vue. It also allows developers to build their theme using Vaadin components.

How to choose from these Java frameworks?

As each of these frameworks offers some unique features and can be used for different purposes, understanding their features, limitations, and capabilities is very crucial before choosing one for your Java project. To make the right choice, do not forget to take various factors into the account such as your budget, the knowledge and experience of your team, the platform you are working on, the basic requirements and more.