Spring vs Spring boot

By | July 25, 2021

In this post, We will talk about the differences between the standard Spring frameworks and Spring Boot.

What is Spring?

Spring is an open-source(free) very lightweight java framework that allows us to build simple/complex, reliable, and scalable enterprise-level applications. This framework mainly helps us to manage our business objects in a loosely coupled manner using dependency management.

This framework made the development task of Web applications much easier than compared to other frameworks.

Spring Framework Developed in Modular form so you need to add only those dependencies on which your project depends.

In other words, we can say that the Spring framework can be considered as a collection of modules such as Spring JDBC, Spring ORM, Spring AOP, Spring MVC, and Spring Web Flow. We can use any of these modules separately while building a Web application.

We may use many modules together to provide better functionalities in a Web application.

What is Spring boot?

Spring Boot is built on top of the traditional spring framework and it provides an easier way to use all the features of the spring framework. Spring Boot provides autoconfigure feature for all Spring beans. We just need to use proper configuration properties files to make autoconfigure features working rather than relying on default properties values. Using Spring Boot, we really develop Rest API within no time. Spring Boot is very helpful to build microservices and making a production-ready application in very little time.

Few key differences between Spring and Spring Boot:

Spring Spring Boot
Spring is a free or open-source very lightweight java framework widely used to develop enterprise-level applications. Spring Boot is usually built on top of the traditional spring framework and is widely used to develop microservices or REST APIs.
The core important feature of the Spring Framework is dependency injection. The core important feature of the Spring Boot is Autoconfiguration of Spring Beans
It helps us to build a loosely coupled application. It helps to build a stand-alone application. In Other Words, We can say that using Spring boot it is easy to create standalone applications with embedded Tomcat, Jetty, and Undertow servers.
To run the Spring Web application, we need to set up the server explicitly. Spring Boot provides embedded servers such as Tomcat, Jetty and undertow etc.
To run the Spring application, a deployment descriptor is needed to configure. There is no need to configure a deployment descriptor.
To create a Spring application, the developers write lots of configurational code(Either XML or Java config). It reduces the lines of configurational codes. Especially Spring boot discourages using XML configurational code. 
It doesn’t have support for the in-memory database. It has support for the in-memory database such as H2.
It does not provide any readymade production-ready features. It provides production-ready features such as a spring boot actuator to monitor and manage prod deployed applications.
The developer has to define dependencies manually in the maven pom.xml
Spring boot starters configured in maven pom.xml handles the required dependencies.

That’s all about Spring vs Spring boot

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Spring Setter Dependency Injection Example
Spring @Autowired Annotation With Setter Injection Example
Spring Constructor based Dependency Injection Example
Spring @Autowired Annotation With Constructor Injection Example

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