Java is one of the most popular and versatile programming languages. Developed in the 90s, it has undergone continuous evolution which has allowed it to constantly keep up with the times and to always be among the most appreciated solutions by developers. In addition to its renowned portability and robustness, what makes the difference is certainly the high number of frameworks in circulation. In this article we will see which are the best java frameworks in 2024.
What is a framework?
Before seeing which are the most used java frameworks, it is important to clarify what is meant by the term “framework” and what the difference is compared to a simple “library”.
A library is a collection of reusable code that provides pre-written modules to perform specific tasks. A framework, on the other hand, provides a complete structure for building applications. It defines the overall architecture, standard components, and development best practices, providing a “skeleton” on which to build the application.
The main feature of each framework is Inversion of Control (IoC). This is a design principle used in programming and software engineering that allows the control flow of a program to be reversed compared to the traditional execution sequence. Instead of having the application code explicitly call the dependencies or services it needs, the framework or container manages these dependencies and automatically provides them to the application.
Frameworks allow you to accelerate development, improve code management and ensure application scalability.
The most popular java frameworks
Over the years, several java frameworks have been released, each of which has had its moment of glory and popularity. It would therefore be useless to mention them all since for the most part they are almost no longer used. We will therefore mention only those frameworks that currently dominate the Java development landscape and which represent the number one choice of developers depending on the use to be made. Choosing one does not necessarily exclude the other and they can coexist to perform different tasks within the same application.
The Spring family
SpringBoot
Spring Boot is probably the best known and most used Java framework. It is designed to simplify Spring application development by offering automatic configuration and a predefined structure for projects. Its main features include:
- Spring Boot adopts a “convention over configuration” philosophy, providing auto-configurations that automatically detect dependencies in the classpath and correctly configure applications. This dramatically reduces the need for manual configurations.
- Spring Boot allows you to run web applications stand-alone using an embedded server (Tomcat). This eliminates the need to deploy applications on an external server and facilitates the development and deployment process.
- The framework provides a set of features to monitor and manage applications in production such as the actuator, a set of ready-to-use endpoints to monitor application health, metrics, HTTP request details, configurations and other.
- Spring Boot makes extensive use of dependency injection to simplify dependency management in Java applications (thus increasing inversion of control).
Spring Batch
Spring Batch is another framework from the Spring family, designed to perform batch jobs that involve reading, transforming, and writing data. It is especially useful for operations such as importing data from files, migrating databases, generating reports, and other tasks that require processing large amounts of data in batches.
Spring Batch follows a modular architecture, consisting of:
- Job: An entity representing a batch process. A job is composed of one or more steps.
- Step: An atomic unit of work, which can include reading, processing, and writing data.
Other Spring modules
We have already mentioned Spring Boot and Spring Batch but the Spring family is really very large. In fact, there are many other frameworks specialized in different tasks that complement each other. For example, in my blog I have extensively discussed Spring AI which is used for integration with the main AI models.
You can find the complete list of Spring modules on the official documentation.
Java Persistence API (JPA)
Java Persistence API (JPA), is a standard for managing data persistence in Java applications. Provides an API to map Java objects to relational databases (ORM – Object-Relational Mapping), thus simplifying interaction with persistent data. This specification is implemented by various persistence frameworks such as:
- Hibernate;
- OpenJPA;
- Spring Data.
JPA offers an annotation-based programming model and query language (JPQL) for working with persistent data.
Below are the main advantages of using a JPA provider:
- Abstraction: Provides an abstraction for managing persistence, reducing code complexity.
- Standardization: Being a standard, JPA applications can be easily migrated between different persistence providers.
- Integration: Integrates well with other Java frameworks, such as Spring and Java EE.
- Efficiency: Supports caching and query optimization techniques to improve performance.
Java Server Faces (JSF)
JavaServer Faces (JSF) is a Java framework for building component-based user interfaces for web applications. It is a part of the Java EE (Enterprise Edition) platform and is designed to simplify the development of complex, interactive web user interfaces.
Below are the key features of JSF:
- Component-Based Development: Promotes the development of modular and reusable user interfaces.
- Integration with Java EE: Integrates seamlessly with other Java EE technologies such as EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans).
- Standardized Support: Being part of Java EE, JSF has long-term support and follows well-defined standards.
JSF supports several graphics component libraries such as Primefaces.
JUnit
JUnit is an open-source testing framework and is a fundamental tool for Java developers. Allows you to write and run automated unit tests needed to improve the quality of your software.
JUnit fosters Test-Driven-Development (TDD), an approach to software development in which tests are written before actual code, promoting better design.
In conclusion, Java has frameworks of all types, which satisfy any need and which can be used together in perfect harmony. The total coverage of any need by Java frameworks has allowed this language to have an enormous diffusion in the world of software development and for many years it has been at the top of the charts. Even today, Java represents a much loved choice for developers and above all for companies that need portable, scalable and above all reliable applications.