Difference Between Spring and Spring Boot

Table of Contents

After learning about the difference between spring and spring boot, we will explore what is spring and spring boot in brief. The comparison of spring vs spring boot will be done based on various aspects such as key features, use and types of application development.

Difference Between Spring and Spring Boot

There exists various differences between spring and spring boots which are explained in the table provided below:

Key Differences Between Spring and Spring Boot

Spring	Spring Boot
It is an open-source framework.	It is built on top of spring.
Dependency injection is an essential feature.	Auto-configuration is an essential feature.
A loosely coupled application is created.	A standalone application is created.
The server is set explicitly for spring.	Embedded servers are provided.
Excessive codes are required.	The number of codes is reduced.
The in-memory database is not supported.	The in-memory database is supported.
The deployment descriptor is required.	The deployment descriptor is not required.

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What is a Spring in Java?

Spring is a framework developed for the Java programming language. This is also called the framework since it is used by various frameworks such as JSP, Struts, etc. It is known for dependency Injection. The benefit of the spring is that it is effective in all layers of the development of the application.

Spring framework is known for being lightweight. It is a collection of sub-frameworks. There are various modules in the spring framework:

Spring AOP
Spring Test
Spring ORM
Spring JDBC
Spring MVC
Spring Security

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What is a Spring Boot?

Spring boot is also a framework built as a module of the spring framework. Standalone applications can be developed with minimal configuration. Among various benefits of spring boot, it does not need deployment of WAR files, is easier to launch, XML configuration is not required, etc.

The characteristic of a spring boot is that everything in it is auto-configured. Various stater dependencies are offered by spring-boot:

Spring-boot-starter-data-jpa
Spring-boot-starter-security
Spring-boot-starter-aop
Spring-boot-starter-web
Spring-boot-starter-thyme-leaf
Spring-boot-starter-mail
Spring-boot-starter-web-services
Spring-boot-starter-test

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What is Spring Boot?

Spring Boot is a Framework from “The Spring Team” to ease the bootstrapping and development of new Spring Applications.
It provides defaults for code and annotation configuration to quick start new Spring projects within no time. It follows “Opinionated Defaults Configuration” Approach to avoid lot of boilerplate code and configuration to improve Development, Unit Test and Integration Test Process.

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What is NOT Spring Boot?

Spring Boot Framework is not implemented from the scratch by The Spring Team, rather than implemented on top of existing Spring Framework (Spring IO Platform).
It is not used for solving any new problems. It is used to solve same problems like Spring Framework.

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Why Spring Boot?

To ease the Java-based applications Development, Unit Test and Integration Test Process.
To reduce Development, Unit Test and Integration Test time by providing some defaults.
To increase Productivity.

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Advantages of Spring Boot

It is very easy to develop Spring Based applications with Java or Groovy.
It reduces lots of development time and increases productivity.
It avoids writing lots of boilerplate Code, Annotations and XML Configuration.
It is very easy to integrate Spring Boot Application with its Spring Ecosystem like Spring JDBC, Spring ORM, Spring Data, Spring Security etc.
It follows “Opinionated Defaults Configuration” Approach to reduce Developer effort
It provides Embedded HTTP servers like Tomcat, Jetty etc. to develop and test our web applications very easily.
It provides CLI (Command Line Interface) tool to develop and test Spring Boot(Java or Groovy) Applications from command prompt very easily and quickly.
It provides lots of plugins to develop and test Spring Boot Applications very easily using Build Tools like Maven and Gradle
It provides lots of plugins to work with embedded and in-memory Databases very easily.

In Simple Terminology, What Spring Boot means

That means Spring Boot is nothing but existing Spring Framework + Some Embedded HTTP Servers (Tomcat/Jetty etc.) – XML or Annotations Configurations.
Here minus means we don’t need to write any XML Configuration and few Annotations only.

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Main Goal of Spring Boot

The main goal of Spring Boot Framework is to reduce Development, Unit Test and Integration Test time and to ease the development of Production ready web applications very easily compared to existing Spring Framework, which really takes more time.

To avoid XML Configuration completely
To avoid defining more Annotation Configuration(It combined some existing Spring Framework Annotations to a simple and single Annotation)
To avoid writing lots of import statements
To provide some defaults to quick start new projects within no time.
To provide Opinionated Development approach.

By providing or avoiding these things, Spring Boot Framework reduces Development time, Developer Effort and increases productivity.

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Limitation/Drawback of Spring Boot

Spring Boot Framework has one limitation.

It is some what time consuming process to convert existing or legacy Spring Framework projects into Spring Boot Applications but we can convert all kinds of projects into Spring Boot Applications. It is very easy to create brand new/Greenfield Projects using Spring Boot.

To Start Opinionated Approach to create Spring Boot Applications, The Spring Team (The Pivotal Team) has provided the following three approaches.

Using Spring Boot CLI Tool
Using Spring STS IDE
Using Spring Initializr Website

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We will discuss one by one in detail with some good examples in coming posts. We can find Spring Initializr Website at: https://start.spring.io/
We can develop two flavors of Spring-Based Applications using Spring Boot

Java-Based Applications
Groovy Applications

We can use Spring Boot CLI or Spring STS IDE or Spring Initializr Website to develop Spring Boot Groovy Applications. However, we can use Spring STS IDE or Spring Initializr Website to develop Spring Boot Java Applications.

Anyhow, Groovy is also JVM language almost similar to Java Language. We can combine both Groovy and Java into one Project. Because like Java files, Groovy files are finally compiled into *.class files only. Both *.groovy and *.java files are converted to *.class file (Same byte code format).

Spring Boot Framework Programming model is inspired by Groovy Programming model. Spring Boot internally uses some Groovy based techniques and tools to provide default imports and configuration.