Spring Boot is a framework for building Java applications that makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring-based applications. It takes an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries, so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.
Spring Boot provides a number of useful features, including:
- Embedded Tomcat, Jetty, or Undertow web servers, so you can run your applications in a standalone jar
- Automatic configuration of Spring and third-party libraries based on the classpath and various other factors
- Command-line tools for running Spring Boot applications
- A wide variety of “starter” dependencies that allow you to add jars to your classpath and get automatic configuration for common libraries
- Automatic metrics, health checks, and externalized configuration
To get started with Spring Boot, you can create a new project using the Spring Initializr, which is a web-based tool for generating Spring Boot projects. You can choose the dependencies that you need for your project, and the Initializr will generate a project structure and build file for you. Alternatively, you can use the Spring Boot CLI to generate a new project from the command line.
Once you have your project set up, you can use the Spring Boot Maven or Gradle plugins to build and run your application. Spring Boot also provides a number of developer tools, such as the Spring Boot DevTools, which can be useful for live reloading and debugging your application during development.