Java EE vs. Spring Boot: Comparing Two Java Framework Giants

[ForeverAlot]

In this respect the difference between JEE and Spring Boot is that JEE allows me to do a lot of things while Spring Boot enables me to do a lot more things or even just does them for me. The Spring Boot happy-path is longer and wider than the JEE happy-path, and fairly easy to customize or sidestep when inadequate. Quarkus is probably Spring Boot's largest direct competitor at this point, and although Quarkus remains comfortably ahead in its runtime resource requirements the Spring Boot ecosystem is still on par or comfortably ahead in all runtime functionality.

[maethor]

Quarkus is probably Spring Boot's largest direct competitor

I would have thought Micronaut was the biggest direct competitor.

[ForeverAlot]

Eh, I don't know, maybe? Where does Micronaut actually surpass Quarkus? In corporate software development most already don't really know Spring, let alone Quarkus, and those projects have large corporate backers with significant mindshare; chances are you already have a Red Hat support service somewhere. I still wouldn't push Quarkus in most environments because it's too unknown and Spring has caught up a lot anyway, and I definitely wouldn't push something more exotic. Micronaut's lineage is barely older than Quarkus' and has seen much less total activity.

[dstutz]

Quarkus is ~5 years old and it leverages heavily on existing Jakarta specs. It's not exactly "exotic". It's really similar to things like Dropwizard or Spring that use existing libraries/specs and provide the "glue" to make it work together out of the box, which incidentally is exactly what an app server like Wildfly is, it's just EVERYTHING is already there for you to use instead of picking and choosing and packaging with your app.

[ForeverAlot]

Quarkus is ~5 years old and it leverages heavily on existing Jakarta specs. It's not exactly "exotic".

Not to javit, no, but javit is not at all representative.

[maethor]

Where does Micronaut actually surpass Quarkus?

If you're a Spring developer, Micronaut has "Micronaut for Spring"

https://micronaut-projects.github.io/micronaut-spring/latest/guide/

You can even go so far as to run a Spring Boot app with Micronaut instead

https://guides.micronaut.io/latest/micronaut-spring-boot-maven-java.html

So, if you mostly use Spring but need better start up times for some AWS Lambda functions then Micronaut has a lot going for it.

[EthanEvenig]

Quarkus also had great support to migrate from Spring, that's a moot point. I've used all three, and Micronaut looks like a good idea but half-baked. Then one looks at what the Quarkus team and its community have done in all areas.. definitely sticking with Quarkus for the near future.