Why and When to use Spring Boot Framework?

Spring Boot is an open-source micro framework built on top of the Spring framework. It makes use of Java, which is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. 

With the addition of new functions over the last few years, the Spring framework has grown very complicated. Starting a new Spring project as a result necessitates extensive time and drawn-out procedures. Spring Boot was introduced, nonetheless, to reduce the extra time and effort. Spring Boot is currently the most popular framework that uses the Spring framework as its base. The 2022 Java Developer Productivity Report states that 74% of developers surveyed use Spring Boot as their primary framework technology. 

Over the years, enhancements have been made to both Spring and Spring Boot. As of March 2022, Spring Boot 2.6 is the most recent version. 

Spring is owned by the company Pivotal Software, which VMWare purchased in 2020. 

Spring Boot Overview 

Although Spring Boot is simply an expansion of the popular and well-established Spring frameworks, it has several unique characteristics that make it simpler for developers to use the application. Pre-configurable web starter kits are a component of that extension that facilitates the functions of an application server needed for other Spring projects. 

• Spring Boot provides developers with an incredibly quick approach to create and deploy applications and services. These are the top two benefits of Spring Boot. 

When to use Spring Boot for Applications 

When does utilizing Spring Boot make sense, or when is it best to build an application using Spring Boot? When using Spring as your main application framework when microservices are involved, Spring Boot is the best option. 

The auto-configuration, embedded servers, and streamlined dependency management of Spring Boot make it simple to support for the usage of Microservice architecture. Due to its short initial setup and speedy download of the necessary application servers or packages, Spring Boot enables development teams to create services quickly and effectively. 

Market Share 

According to the 2022 Java Developer Productivity Report, 32% of developers use microservices as their primary architecture. Java technology and techniques that support the microservices architecture are therefore widely used. Spring Boot remained the top microservice application framework at 74%.

Source: 2022 Java Developer Productivity Report - Most Popular Java Application Frameworks 

Advantages of Spring Boot 

1) Faster Development 

Numerous decisions are made by Spring Boot, which has an opinionated default over Spring Ecosystem. The developer can swiftly set up and begin development because to its nature. 

For instance, many XML bean definitions and unique servlet classes made Spring MVC viable. However, introducing a startup dependency in Spring Boot makes it very easy. No XML setting for code generation is necessary. 

2) There is a starter for everything 

Maven descriptors called "Spring Boot Starters" include libraries and some of its auto-configurations. Additionally, these starters support the addition of functionality to Spring Boot applications. Interested in configuring database connections? For that, a beginning dependency exists. Would you like to send emails or speak to message queues? It's covered by the spring boot. 

There is a startup dependency for practically all Spring Modules that will configure everything for you. Through their starter modules, several third-party libraries even support Spring. You, the developer, will be responsible for keeping the dependencies and XML configurations up to date without these starts. You should utilize Spring Boot for this reason, among others. 

3) Embedded Web Servers 

With Spring Boot, embedded Tomcat, Jetty, and Undertow servers are supported right out of the box. Developers can avoid worrying about deploying web applications in conventional app servers this way. It is simpler to switch from one server technology to another when starter dependencies are adequate. As a result,  a JAR file that can be launched as any JAR. The JAR starts up with necessary configurations and libraries to act as an app server and receive requests. 

Additionally, Spring Boot applications can be deployed    to conventional servers by converting them from JAR to WAR if they are not interested in embedded servers. 

4) Rich IDE Support for Spring Boot 

Spring Boot code assistance is supported by all popular IDEs. For Spring Boot applications, for instance, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate includes excellent code completion and navigation features. 

Through the Spring Tools plugin, Eclipse and VSCode offer comparable support. 

5) Production-Ready Features 

Monitoring, analytics, and logging are just a few of the production-ready capabilities that Spring Boot offers out of the box. The designers can avoid unnecessary settings thanks to these features. For instance, the health actuator endpoint allows for the monitoring of an application's state. For instance, Prometheus-style technologies can collect application metrics. 

Utilize the readiness and liveliness health endpoints in your Kubernetes or Openshift settings. Simply adding new properties or using the /actuator/logging endpoint will allow you to change the logging levels. 

Furthermore, the developers can add their own unique custom health endpoints to these actuator endpoints. 

6) JUnit Support out of the box. 

JUnit 5 is pre-installed in every Spring Boot project by default. Additionally, Spring Boot has the @SpringBootTest annotation that can be used to create a test context when necessary. Thus, all the developers need to do is create test cases. Complex spring circumstances for the test cases are no longer a concern. 

7) Spring Profiles 

Spring Boot's robust Spring Profiles functionality aids in the separation of various application components. You can enable or disable a component in a particular environment using profiles. When you need to employ multiple components depending on specific circumstances, this could be useful. 

8) Multiple Packaging and Deployment Options 

The framework offers a number of options for packaging your application. The application may be a JAR or WAR file, as we previously stated. You can also produce high-performance Docker images right out of the box with some additional settings and parameters. 

Spring Boot apps can easily be started and stopped. Additionally, by taking a few extra steps, you may deploy these JAR files as Linux Services. All of the application's dependencies are contained in the JAR files, also referred to as FAT jars. The deployment procedure is simplified as a result. Actually, these builds are compatible with any computer running Java 8 or higher. 

What can Spring Boot do? 

1. Microservices: Quickly deliver production?grade features with independently evolvable microservices. 
2. Reactive: Spring's asynchronous, nonblocking architecture means you can get more from your computing resources. 
3. Cloud: Your code, any cloud—we’ve got you covered. Connect and scale your services, whatever your platform. 
4. Web apps: Frameworks for fast, secure, and responsive web applications connected to any data store. 
5. Serverless: The ultimate flexibility. Scale up on demand and scale to zero when there’s no demand. 
6. Event Driven: Integrate with your enterprise. React to business events. Act on your streaming data in realtime. 
7. Batch: Automated tasks. Offline processing of data at a time to suit you. 

Companies Using Spring Boot 

Creating independent applications can be facilitated by the Spring Boot framework. Because of its advantages and characteristics, various developers choose it as their favorite tool to begin creating their start-ups. The next 10 best start-ups that use Spring Boot, according to StackShare, are shown below. 

Top Start-ups using Spring Boot 

• Udemy 
• Trivago 
• Intuit 
• CRED 
• Paytm 
• Netflix 

Why did Netflix opt for Spring Boot framework? 

Netflix made the decision to use Spring Boot as its primary Java framework this year. Efficiency, dependability, scalability, and security were needed for Netflix's cloud infrastructure in the early 2010s. The Netflix crew came up with ideas on-site because there weren't any other workable choices. Netflix has achieved all of these goals by utilizing the Spring Boot framework and offers fantastic experiences like: 

• Data access with spring-data, 
• Complex security management with spring security, and 
• Integration with cloud providers with spring-cloud-AWS. 

Spring framework also features proven and long-lasting abstractions and APIs.  

Conclusion 

Choosing the appropriate framework and tool is similar to choosing the proper building blocks for software development. As it will have an impact on performance and productivity down the road, you must ensure that everything is moving in the right direction from the very beginning. A team of skilled Java Spring Boot developers at KPi-Tech Services can increase your productivity by creating a cutting-edge digital solution for you. 

Contact us: +1 302 451 9598 | [email protected]

Reference 

1. jrebel-2022-java-developer-productivity-report%20(1).pdf 
2. https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/java-spring-boot 
3. https://spring.io/ 
4. https://springhow.com/why-use-spring-boot/