I. What is Spring Boot? Which Spring Boot should businesses choose?
1. What is Spring Boot?
Spring Boot is a framework built on the Spring MVC platform, a famous framework in Java. Spring is designed based on 2 principles including: Inversion of Control (IOC) and Dependency Insertion (DI), helping to create flexible and easy-to-maintain code.
Learn about Spring Boot concepts (Java Center)
Spring initially helped to minimize the setup time of online applications, but it remained tedious due to the necessity for multiple XML files. To address this problem, Spring Boot was built, with the first version published in April 2014. Spring Boot facilitates app deployment by providing basic components and integrating with the Tomcat server. Use quickly and simply. To summarize, Spring Boot is an easy-to-install and use framework for developing Spring-based applications.
2. Main features of Spring Boot
Key Features of Spring Boot Every Developer Should Know! (GeeksforGeeks)
- Auto Configuration
Spring Boot utilizes the @SpringBootApplication annotation to automatically set up your application depending on the libraries available on the classpath. It automatically configures your application depending on what it finds, removing the need to explicitly define beans in configuration files.
- Standalone Nature
Spring Boot apps may operate independently without the requirement for an external server, enabling microservices architecture. Integrated embedded servers like Tomcat ease the deployment procedure.
- Production Ready
Tools for monitoring the state and performance of applications are provided by Spring Boot. Endpoints for enhanced application control and monitoring are provided by the Actuator module.
- No Code Generation
Spring Boot boosts development efficiency by concentrating on business logic, removing the requirement for XML setup and code creation.
- Opinionated Defaults
It offers starting POMs with default settings for embedded servers, JPA, and other technologies, enabling speedy deployment while yet allowing for customization.
- Microservices Support
Spring Boot interacts easily with Spring Cloud, facilitating the construction of microservices with different databases, and delivering scalable and maintainable service architectures.
- Embedded Servers
It supports popular embedded servers such as Tomcat, Jetty, and Undertow, enabling programs to operate as standalone Java applications without needing WAR files.
- Plugin Support
Spring Boot contains many plugins to aid in developing and maintaining applications, such as the Spring Boot Maven plugin, which enables packaging and starting apps.
- Customization Capabilities
While supplying default configurations, Spring Boot enables modification of application components and settings.
- Extensions
It readily connects with various tools and libraries using starts, providing easy integration of technologies like Thymeleaf, JPA or Security.
3. Choose Spring Boot Thymeleaf or Spring Boot with Angular, React, Vue?
- Server Side Rendering (SSR): Uses Thymeleaf (a view template engine) to construct server-side user interfaces. Thymeleaf combines data from Spring Boot and creates entire HTML pages before transmitting to the browser.
- Client Side Rendering (CSR): Use frameworks like as Angular, React, or Vue to construct client-side user interfaces. These frameworks tap into Spring Boot’s REST API to obtain data and then display the interface directly in the browser.
3.1. What’s the difference between Server Side Rendering and Client Side Rendering?
What’s the difference between Server Side Rendering and Client Side Rendering? (DEV Community)
- Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
With SSR, the page content is rendered on the server before being delivered to the user’s browser, guaranteeing the website is presented promptly with full HTML. An excellent example is utilizing Thymeleaf combined with Spring Boot, where HTML components are produced and transmitted from the server side.
- Client-Side Rendering (CSR)
In CSR, the user’s browser’s JavaScript processes the material after the page loads blankly at first. CSR is used by frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue to get data from Spring Boot’s REST API.
The key difference between these two approaches is that SSR delivers quicker initial load rates and is SEO friendly, but needs larger server resources. Meanwhile, CSR minimizes the burden on the server and delivers a richer user experience once the page opens, but might have difficulties with initial load speed and SEO owing to its dependency on JavaScript.
3.2. Pros and cons of each type
Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
Advantage:
- Fast initial loading speed: The HTML page is rendered on the server and transmitted entirely to the browser, allowing the content to appear instantly.
- SEO friendly: Search engines may easily crawl and index the page since the material is fully displayed.
Defect:
- Excessive server load: The server must handle page rendering for each request, which will inevitably lead to excessive server resource usage.
- Longer response time for post-interaction: After the initial page load, any modifications to the page need a request to the server to re-render, creating longer response times.
Different properties between SSR vs CSR (BKHOST)
Client-Side Rendering (CSR)
Advantage:
- Rich user experience: CSR promotes fluid and dynamic interactions on the website, offering a better user experience once the page has loaded.
- Flexible data loading: Can load and change data via REST API without refreshing the whole page.
Defect:
- Longer initial load time: The page initially shows very little material before the JavaScript is loaded and processed, creating an initially inferior user experience.
- Requires JavaScript: CSR relies on JavaScript, thus it doesn’t perform properly on devices or browsers that don’t have adequate JavaScript support.
II. What is Thymeleaf? How to integrate Thymeleaf into Spring Boot
1. What is Thymeleaf?
Thymeleaf is an open-source library for creating and processing HTML5, XHTML, or XML templates in Java applications. It works in both web and non-web environments. Thymeleaf is a suitable choice for modern web development on the Java platform.
This library displays data or text generated by the application by applying transformations to template files. Thymeleaf integrates seamlessly with the Spring Framework and is a valuable tool for delivering XHTML/HTML5 content in web applications.
2. How to integrate Thymeleaf with Spring Boot
How to add Thymeleaf to Spring Boot simply (Quantrimang.com)
- Step 1- Add dependency: Add Thymeleaf to pom.xml by adding dependency.
- Step 2 – Thymeleaf Configuration: Make sure that the default configuration of Thymeleaf in Spring Boot is sufficient. You can configure further in application properties if necessary.
- Step 3 – Create template: Create HTML files in the src/main/resources/templates folder. These are the template files that will be rendered by Thymeleaf.
- Step 4 – Controller: Create a controller in Spring Boot to process requests and return the name of the Thymeleaf template that needs to be rendered.
- Step 5 – Run Application: Launch Spring Boot application. Thymeleaf will automatically render templates based on data supplied from the controller.
3. What are basic Thymeleaf tags and how to use them?
- th:text: Used to display dynamic content, often the value of a variable or expression.
- th:if, th:unless: Used to test a condition and show or hide HTML elements based on the result of that condition.
- th:switch, th:case: Perform different actions based on the value of a variable, similar to switch-case statements in programming languages.
- th:fragment: Defines an HTML paragraph that can be reused multiple times in other templates.
- th:insert, th:replace: Used to insert (replace) part of the template with another piece of HTML.
- th:field: Links form fields with objects in the model, often used to create registration forms and edit data.
III. Conclusion
Overall, Spring Boot is a powerful framework that simplifies web application development with auto-configuration and microservices support. Depending on your project needs, you can choose Spring Boot with Thymeleaf for fast loading and SEO friendliness, or combine it with Angular, React, Vue to create rich user experiences. With Thymeleaf, web interface development becomes simple and efficient, especially when integrated with Spring Boot.
