Getting Started: Spring Initializr

In this lesson, you will learn what Spring Initializr is and its purpose. We will also discuss the application we are going to build and create the basic template of our project.

What is Spring Initializr

Spring Initializr is a web application for creating a starter template project.

Spring Initializr allows us to choose the following:

• Build tool – This tool is for fetching dependencies, building, and running the application. Spring Initializr allows us to choose from the following:

  • Maven
  • Gradle

• Programming language – As Spring Boot is for Java or JVM based programming languages, we can choose from the following languages:

  • Java
  • Kotlin
  • Groovy

• Spring Boot version – We see the RELEASE and SNAPSHOT versions. Preferably, we choose the latest RELEASE version which is selected by default.

  The SNAPSHOT version can be updated multiple times. While the RELEASE version has only one and cannot be modified.

• Project metadata – This provides the project name, package, description, group, and artifact information.

• Packaging

  • JAR (Java Archive) – a runnable JAR for standalone applications.
  • WAR (Web Archive) – for web applications that can be deployed on a web server.

  Note: JAR contains compiled classes and resources. WAR contains all the dependent JARs, static web content, servlet classes, etc. and it is self-contained.

• Java version – For Spring Boot version 2.0+, the minimum Java version required is 8. We can choose from the provided options as per our needs.

• Dependencies – Based on our needs, we can choose the dependencies by clicking on the “ADD DEPENDENCIES” button.