List of Most popular Java Frameworks in 2023

Java frameworks are pre-written codes that help a developer to build a project quickly. Either a web app, backend, desktop app, microservices, and android apps, almost for each purpose, there will be at least one framework to help a developer with its project. All frameworks bring up many libraries and modules in-built that allow a developer to get his project done easier.

We have collected some popular java frameworks, mentioned their advantages, disadvantages.

Most popular Java frameworks

Vaadin

Vaadin is a popular web application development framework that allows developers to create web applications using Java for both the front-end and the back-end. Vaadin’s unique feature is its server-side architecture that enables developers to build applications without needing to write JavaScript or HTML code.

While it may not be as widely known as other Java frameworks like Spring or Struts, Vaadin has a growing community of developers who appreciate its ease of use, simplicity, and productivity. According to GitHub, the Vaadin framework has over 3,000 stars and 1,000 forks, indicating a significant level of interest from the developer community.List Most popular Java Frameworks

Pros

  • It is a java framework for web development.
  • It handles both server-side and client-side operations.

Cons

  • It is not suitable for handling big java web apps.
  • Consume high resources

Apache Struts

Apache Struts is a popular Java web application framework used for developing dynamic enterprise websites. It follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern and provides a set of components such as JSP, JavaBean, and XML, which makes it easier for developers to build web applications more efficiently.

Pros

  • It is suitable for Maintaining front end view.
  • It helps you bind your client-side to the server.
  • It contains many useful components for building front ends.

Cons

  • It is an outdated framework, so understanding codes are somewhat troublesome.
  • Its documentation is hard to understand for beginners.

Play Framework

Play is a modern and lightweight web application framework for Java and Scala that is well-suited for building microservices and RESTful web applications. It emphasizes low resource consumption, high performance, and real-time error handling, which makes it a popular choice for developers.

According to GitHub, the Play framework has over 7,000 stars and 2,000 forks, indicating a significant level of interest from the developer community.

Pros

  • It is a beginner-friendly.
  • It demands a few codes for developing highly scalable web apps.
  • It works well for developing micro web apps using java.

Cons

  • It does not render well when implementing it for developing big web apps.
  • It will require Groovy coding languages to move on at some points.

Spring Security

Spring Security is a popular Java framework that is widely used for building secure web applications. It is compatible with both Java SE and Java EE and is derived from the Spring ecosystem, which is known for its simplicity, flexibility, and extensibility.

According to GitHub, the Spring Security framework has over 7,000 stars and 3,000 forks,

Pros

  • Offer strong security filters.

Cons

  • Any miscode can lead you to face penetration from hackers.

Hibernate

Hibernate ORM is an advantageous java framework for object-relational mapping and CRUD operations. It takes care of mapping Java classes to the server via XML file. You can have other frameworks, but this one composes it easy to communicate with your back end. Many java developers often use this framework to map the URLs to their database, either JDBC or RBS. Hibernate turns lower the efforts while mapping Java classes to database tables manually.

The best part of using hibernate java frame is that we all know an unfamiliar SQL table can upturn some headache, mostly when we try to figure out, and fixing manually can take longer. So  HIbernate comes down here to take this obstacle and resolve this in a matter of minutes.

Pros

  • Automating Table creation.
  • Fast performance, lightweight
  • It works well with SQL tables.

Cons

  • Not suitable for small web apps
  • Restrict some queries that JDBC use.

MyBatis

My Batis cuts down the efforts in writing manual JDBC code and manual setting of parameters. It follows the ORM way to a couple of java classes to SQL tables in a different way.  Mybatis is good to use for fetching a specific query from the SQL database. Instead of mapping a complete SQL database, it only gets a particular response from the Database. That’s why we don’t call it an object-relational map, although its function is similar to that.

However, if you want to know a clear difference between Hibernate ORM and MyBatis, then get MyBatis as if you’re going to run analytic fetch queries such as (summation/aggregation queries). On the other hand, use the Hibernate ORM framework if you need to work on CRUD ( Create, Read, Update, Delete) operation

Pros

  • Easy to maintain.
  • It is suitable for managing small web apps.
  • Support to write dynamic SQL codes in a separate file

Cons

  • Often it gets complicated to couple a java object to a database.
  • It does not fully support cascading between the two tables adding and deleting.

JHipster

Jhipster is a popular full-stack web development framework. Let’s Developers quickly develop a blog website using this popular java framework to use angular or react to client-side development. It is an open-source Java framework. Mainly it reduces the workdays into hours. Detailed documentation is out there where you can pick up to use this framework. Indeed, it will not take much of your time to understand this framework, even if you have very little knowledge of java functions. Moreover, you will also have access to JHipster repository, where you can get many libraries or contribute, thereby sharing some of your created libraries.

Pros

  • It lets you develop a web app in a matter of minutes.

Cons

  • It auto-generates a bunch of codes for the developers, sometimes unneeded.

Dropwizard

Dropwizard is useful when developing a REST service, there are a few libraries that come into choices. A few of them are Hibernate Validator, Jetty server, Google Guava, Logback, and Jersey to build RESTful web services and Jackson for processing JSON. Fortunately, Dropwizard provides all these libraries in one place.

Dropwizard is more like offering a developer-friendly environment, typically when you are getting into something as RESTful web services. It is a collection of some handy libraries that you are probably going to hand them over. Furthermore, Dropwizar can be compared to a full-stack Java framework such as Jhipster.

Pros

  • It provides an accessible collection of java libraries in one place.
  • It aims to provide a desktop environment for developers.

Cons

  • Matter of taste, you may not see your favorite libraries.

Google web toolkit (GWT)

Google web toolkit stands out for client-side programming and lets the developers build their front-end logic by using their favorite language, java. GWT formats the java codes into the browser-friendly language HTML, CSS, Javascript. As the name suggests, it is google’s tool. Many of Google’s websites are built by GWT. Such as Adword and Adsense. Additionally, you can develop and debug any AJAX application using java language and java development tools you feel comfortable with.

Pros

  • It opens the door for java developers to build front end logic.
  • If you’re a java developer, you hardly need any further learning to a headway.

Cons

  • It takes longer to compile codes.
  • It is a bit heavyweight.

JavaServer Faces (JSF)

It brings a bunch of layout of HTML including javascript within the box, we call them components, and show these components at the client-side it works based on the MVC concept. Where some modules take care of this. As model:backing bean view:JSF controller:faces servlet. Primarily Java server faces tend to provide a very operative UI scaling down the efforts and time as it comes up with quite handy components.

The main drawback of this; whenever an error crop up, its hard to walk thorugh. Due to readymade templates, it sticks around to identify where the problem has come out.

Pros

  • It makes it easy for developers to build web apps.
  • It reduces the developing time.

Cons

  • Often it gets a headache to change CSS styling.

Primefaces

Prime faces works with the Java server faces. Primefaces comes up with many libraries for the user interface in one place. It is nothing but a vast gallery to pick any of your favorite UI components, then bind that on the view side. Besides just ready-made components, you are allowed to create a custom one if you prefer any Modification.

Rather than just components, Primefaces bring responsive templates, convenient widgets, responsive mobile designs, and things like these, helping a developer get his website ready as quickly as possible.

Pros

  • It carries heaps of tools for UI.
  • It is a lightweight framework.

Cons

  • Its components are troublesome when modifying.

Spark Framework

Spark java framework lets the developers create android apps, microservices web using kotlin/ java with minimal effort. Despite the fact it is a popular framework, the spark is also. It is known as an ecosystem, so it is unnecessary to use it with Kotlin. It has various versions to stand with python, PHP, and many frameworks and dependencies for spark. It takes care of almost 70% of the code you can modify as per your project requirements. Typically, it is rich in code templates. However, it neither follows MVC nor components, even though it lets you structure your app.

Apache spark is best for server data-handling for massive data processing.

Apache Spark Java framework can be used on the server-side. With this framework, you can get your web server running up quickly, jetty server, No SQL, and many Databases work well with this framework. Spark framework servers can bear as vast amounts of traffic as 100,000 per day too. A study says that the Apache Spark framework is mostly used for creating REST APIs. Despite the fact, Apache Spark framework servers can bear as massive traffic as 100,000 per day.

Tapestry

The tapestry was a popular component-oriented based java framework, similar to JavaServer faces. It was the first on the list that introduced the way to use java on the client-side and shared the methodology to couple java components with the server with ease. Sadly it lost its reputation now in 2020, the JavaServer faces have taken place. It does not mean it is dead; however, many frameworks based on the component-based (MVC) options divided their fan base. Also, the frequent alternation in technological zones had acted out its reputation poorly.

Pros

  • It is suitable for developing client-side views.

Cons

  • It is outdated now.
  • Hard to understand code syntaxes.

Grails

Grails Groovy framework

Grails serves a development environment by standing alone, coming up with a bunch of handy plugins, turning down the time for doing repetitive tasks, and reducing CSS and HTML use. Although its core language is not Java yet, it can be used in JVM. And let a developer use java language. The best part of this framework that It is very adaptable. You can easily integrate Groovy language and java language in one project.

Pros

  • It makes the development of a small or normal web app easier.
  • It comes up with useful plugins.

Cons

  • You must know Groovy in order to use grails.

Written by

I am a software engineer with over 10 years of experience in blogging and web development. I have expertise in both front-end and back-end development, as well as database design, web security, and SEO.