Top Java frameworks for startups web development
Java frameworks are great for startups. I'm not diving into all those economic stuff in this post because you can already know about Java's potential or just read it from experts. In this article, I want to write about the top Java frameworks for startups in web development. So, you probably know that there are dozens of frameworks for different purposes. But should you learn all of them? Nope. Of course, you can learn each of them, but there are a number of frameworks to be mastered first. What are these frameworks? Let's find out!
Few words, I'll not write about the advantages or disadvantages of each platform here; otherwise, this post would be enormously big. I'll write another post based on the advantages and disadvantages next time, so stay tuned if you are interested in this topic. If you don't want to wait, I would recommend you this article; they have already covered this topic.
Here Top 10 Java frameworks that we'll talk about today:
- Spring
- Hibernate
- Google Web Toolkit
- Tapestry
- Dropwizard
- Grails
- Vaadin
- JHipster
- Play
- Spark
Have you heard something about them? Let's give them some details.
Spring
Used by: Zalando, BlaBlaCar, Zillow, Netflix, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.
Spring is rightly referred to as the best Java framework for web development. It is a robust, lightweight, and the most popular application framework affecting Java's improvement in speed, easiness, and safety in usage. It designs and manages the lifecycle and configurations of application objects. Spring is popular among the large enterprise segment when repeatedly becoming the number one choice of professional developers. It is perfect for developing scalable, secure, and robust client-oriented web applications.
Spring is ideal for creating enterprise Java applications. It allows developers to focus on the business logic of the application. A pair of Spring MVC (Model View Controller) and Spring Cloud transforms Java into a modern, reactive, and cloud-ready tool to create high-performance, complex web applications.
Hibernate
Used by: Platform, Backbase, Dell, Trade Republic, DAILYHOTEL.
Hibernate is an open-source ORM framework for Java web development, compelling and has high-performance ratings. It is an object-relational mapping framework that creates communication between the tables in the database and the Java classes and vice versa. This saves developers a considerable amount of unnecessary, routine work and, consequently, makes mistakes.
Since Hibernate was designed for relational databases, more recent versions now support NoSQL data stores too. Additionally, it features a mapping editor and also such top-notch developer tools like a database reverse engineering tool and a Hibernate console.
Google Web Toolkit
Used by: Boeing, Stellar Science, ECR Software Corp., Lockheed Martin
Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is an open-source toolkit released by Google to help developers write Java code and compile it into JavaScript to run in browsers. You can create complex web applications without practical experience with front-end development languages such as JavaScript. This Java web application development framework includes a number of unique features, such as UI abstraction, cross-browser compatibility, and internationalization.
Tapestry
Used by: Finance Active, sigh, Beckon
Tapestry allows Java developers to build dynamic, reliable, and highly scalable web applications. It works in any servlet container or application server since it enhances and expands upon the standard Java Servlet API. Any application server can run Tapestry, and it integrates quickly with all back ends, such as Spring, Hibernate, etc. Following the convention-over-configuration paradigm, It uses naming conventions and annotations for configurations.
Dropwizard
Used by: CRED, UpWork, Wayfair, Samba Tech, Yammer
Dropwizard is a powerful Java framework highly optimized for developing RESTful services. In Dropwizard, the definitions of a library and a framework are blurred. Its objective is to offer dependable, practical implementations of each requirement for a production-ready web application. Your application remains nimble and focused because this functionality has been abstracted into a reusable library, which lowers. JSON eliminates the need to write code for metrics and configurations.
Dropwizard saves your effort on extra features like configuring metrics or writing logging code. Instead, you can maximize efficiency by concentrating on the main business logic of your program.
Grails
Used by: LinkedIn, Biting Bit, TransferWise, EasyCrédito, PedidosYa
Grails is one of the most popular Java frameworks for web development for creating web applications written in the Groovy scripting language with a Java-like syntax that works on the Java platform. Its ideology is similar to Ruby on rails. The mission of the web application framework was to attract users' interest in the Java platform. It made it possible to build web applications easily and flexibly, not previously available in Java development.
Vaadin
Used by: Associated Bank, T-Mobile Polska, Generali Hellas, CAS genesisWorld.
Vaadin is a UI framework with a server-side Java programming model, where all UI logic and state are located on the server, and only the UI component code is executed in the browser. The server-side approach allows the UI development as a desktop Java application with direct access to data and services on the server. The Vaadin engine renders the server-side application UI in the browser and implements all the details of the client-server exchange.
Building an enterprise web application involves many moving parts. Vaadin simplifies creating an enterprise web application thanks to an integrated Java web application development platform. All the necessary components, frameworks, and tools needed to create robust, secure business applications with a great UX are available in Vaadin.
JHipster
Used by: Adobe, Bank Of The West BNP Paribas, Accenture, Accor Live Limitless
JHipster is a relatively young open-source Java framework that combines Spring Boot, client-side frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue to make a rapid web application development Java. JHipster provides two types of architectures: monolithic (frontend and backend are implemented in a single application) and microservices (frontend and backend are implemented separately).
Play
Used by: LinkedIn, Glovo, Coursera, Zalando, Accenture, Deloitte
Play Framework combines productivity and performance for creating scalable online applications in a quick and easy way using Java and Scala. Play's architecture is lightweight, stateless and suitable for the web. Play, which is based on Akka, gives highly scalable applications predictable and low resource consumption (CPU, memory, threads).
Play has a "just hit refresh" workflow and built-in testing capabilities, making it developer friendly. Play's stateless and non-blocking architecture enables applications to scale predictably. It is a perfect fit for contemporary web & mobile applications because it is RESTful by default and includes assets compilers, JSON, and WebSocket support.
Spark
Used by: Revolut, Payjinn, 1000mercis, Kasa Smart, Waltz.
Spark is a less verbose style of coding Java/Kotlin applications pursuing the aim of rapid development. Spark allows using fewer templates while developing Java/Kotlin apps. With Spark, developers can enjoy a REST API ready to serve JSON in a few lines of code. Being a microframework, Spark excels at handling microservices. It supports a wide range of template engines but is primarily used for building REST APIs. Using Spark means developing an application quickly, like with Node.js, but getting all the benefits of running them on the JVM.
Do you find this post useful? Write your thoughts in the comments below, and also share your opinion on what Java framework looks the most attractive to you.
