What Spring Boot actually solves

Spring Boot · lesson 1 of 39 · 2 min read

Know why Spring Boot exists and what it removes compared to plain Spring.

Open this lesson in the learning hub

Key points

  • Plain Spring is powerful but needs pages of XML or Java config before the first request works.
  • Spring Boot ships opinionated defaults. You get a running web server, JSON mapping and logging for free.
  • Nothing is hidden. Every default is a normal bean you can replace by declaring your own.
  • One main method starts the app. No WAR file, no external Tomcat to install.
  • Boot 3 requires Java 17+ and uses jakarta.* packages, not the old javax.*.

Spring Boot is Spring with the boilerplate pre-answered — and every answer is overridable.

Starters and the parent POM

This is a reading copy. The full lesson — with the visual explainer, the interactive lab and a Run button for the code — lives in the Spring Boot course, and every lesson in it is listed on the Spring Boot contents page.