The question comes up often. It came up in my new project in November 2011, too. I will use Java EE (JEE) instead of the Spring framework in this new Enterprise Java project.
I know: Several articles, blogs and forum discussions are available regarding this topic. Why is there a need for one more? Because many blogs talk about older versions of Java EE or because they are not neutral (I hope to be neutral). And because many people still think thank EJBs are heavy! And because the time has changed: It is Java EE 6 time now, J2EE is dead. Finally! Finally, because not only JEE 6 is available, but also several application servers (not just Glassfish as reference implementation). I do not want to start a flame war (too many exist already), I just want to describe my personal opinion of the JEE vs. Spring „fight“…
Therefore, I think it is very important to start with a short overview and history of both alternatives. Afterwards, I will list the differences of both and explain why these differences lead me to JEE instead of Spring for most new Java projects. I am explicitly talking about new applications. If you have to extend an existing application, continue using the existing framework!
One more disclaimer: I am talking about mission-critical Enterprise Java applications. I am not talking about a little internal application or other uncritical stuff. I also would prefer using a combination of Scala, Groovy and Clojure persisting to a NoSQL database while being deployed at a PaaS cloud service such as JBoss OpenShift or VMware CloudFoundry…
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT JEE AND SPRING
First, I want to summarize some general information about JEE and Spring:
- In the end, both alternatives consist of several libraries which can be used by developers to create enterprise applications.
- Both can be used in most use cases, they have very similar functionality (business logic, transactions, web-frameworks, whatever…) – they only differ in realization (e.g. declarative transactions in Spring vs. conventions in JEE).
- You also can use only one or some of the available libraries. You can even combine JEE and Spring stuff.
- Usually, the crucial question is: „Should I use JEE (i.e. especially EJB, JPA, CDI, etc.) or the Spring core framework (i.e. especially Spring Application Context, Spring beans, etc.) for realizing my new application? Mostly, you can choose both, it does not matter from the point of view of the end user. But you should not merge both, this only creates higher complexity.
- There always was a debate about which alternative to choose. It is very difficult to discuss this question in a neutral way. That’s why almost all discussions end up in praising one framework and bashing the other one (I hope to be neutral in this blog post).
Read the rest of the article at the following URL:
Java Code Geeks: Why I will use Java EE instead of Spring in new Enterprise Java Projects in 2012