Java Spring Pros and Cons

The Spring framework makes Java programming quicker, easier, and safer for everybody. Its simplicity, speed, and productivity made it the most popular framework in the world. In this section, we will discuss the pros and cons of Java Spring.

Java Spring

There are a lot of tools that come with the Spring framework and allows us to reap the benefit of the out of box solutions. We do not require to write thousands of lines of code. It saves both time and energy. Let's discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Spring framework.

Spring Pros

There are the following advantages of the Spring framework:

1. Light Weight: Spring is a lightweight framework because of its POJO implementation. It does not force the programmer to inherit any class and implement any interface. With the help of Spring, we can enable powerful, scalable applications using POJOs (Plain Old Java Object).
2. Flexible: It provides flexible libraries trusted by developers all over the world. The developer can choose either XML or Java-based annotations for configuration options. The IoC and DI features provide the foundation for a wide-ranging set of features and functionality. It makes the job simpler.
3. Loose Coupling: Spring applications are loosely coupled because of dependency injection. It handles injecting dependent components without a component knowing where they came from.
4. Powerful Abstraction: It provides a powerful abstraction to JEE specifications such as JMS, JDBC, JPA, and JTA.
5. Declarative Support: It provides declarative support for caching, validation, transaction, and formatting.
6. Portable: We can use server-side in web/EJB app, client-side in swing app business logic is completely portable.
7. Cross-cutting behavior: Resource management is a cross-cutting concern, easy to copy and paste everywhere.
8. Configuration: It provides a consistent way of configuring everything, separate configuration from application logic, varying configuration.
9. Lifecycle: Responsible for managing all your application components, particularly those in middle-tier container sees components through well-defined lifecycle: init(), destroy().
10. Dependency Injection: The use of dependency injection makes the easy development of JavaEE.
11. Easier Testing: The use of dependency injection makes the testing easy. The spring framework does not require a server while the EJB and Struts application requires a server.
12. Fast: The team of Spring engineers deeply cares about the performance. Its fast startup, fast shutdown, and optimized execution maintain performance make it fast. Even, we can start a new Spring project in seconds by using Spring Initializr.
13. Secure: It monitors third-party dependencies closely. The regular update is issued that make our data and application secure. We can make our application secure by using the Spring Security framework. It provides industry-standard security schemes and delivers a trustworthy solution that is secure by default.
14. Supportive: The Spring community provides support and resources to get you to the next level QuickStart guides, tutorials, videos, and meetup helps a lot.
15. Productive: It is more productive because the spring application can integrate with other Spring-based applications. For example, we can combine the Spring Boot application with Spring Cloud.

Spring Cons

1. Complexity: Working with Spring is more complex. It requires a lot of expertise. If you have not used Spring before, first you will have to learn. The learning curve is also difficult, so if you have not a lot of development experience, it is difficult to learn.
2. Parallel Mechanism: It provides multiple options to developers. These options create confusion to developers that which feature to use and which to not and wrong decisions may lead to significant delays.
3. No Specific Guidelines: It does not care about XSS or cross-site scripting. With this in mind, we need to figure out ways on how to stop hackers from infiltrating your application yourself.
4. High Learning Curve: If you have not development experience in the field, it would be quite difficult to learn It is difficult due to new programming methods.
5. Lots of XML: Developing a Spring application requires lots of XML.