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Dropwizard vs Play vs Spring: What are the differences?
Key Differences between Dropwizard, Play, and Spring
Dropwizard, Play, and Spring are all popular frameworks used in web development. However, they have some key differences that set them apart. Here are the top 6 differences between Dropwizard, Play, and Spring.
Ease of Use: Dropwizard takes a minimalist approach and aims to simplify the process of building and deploying high-performance web applications. It provides a streamlined development experience with opinionated defaults and out-of-the-box functionality. On the other hand, Play offers a more extensive set of features and tools, making it suitable for complex applications. Spring, being a comprehensive framework, offers a wide range of options and configurations, providing great flexibility but also requiring more initial setup.
Language Support: Dropwizard is primarily focused on developing Java-based applications. It leverages popular libraries like Jersey for RESTful API development. Play, on the other hand, supports multiple languages, including Java and Scala, which allows developers to choose their preferred language for development. Spring also supports multiple programming languages and has extensive support for Java, but it also offers compatibility with Kotlin and Groovy.
Concurrency Model: Play adopts an asynchronous and non-blocking approach, making it highly suitable for handling a large number of concurrent requests and event-driven architectures. It utilizes Akka and its actor model for enhanced scalability. Dropwizard, on the other hand, follows a traditional synchronous model but provides excellent performance and scalability through the efficient use of resources. Spring supports both synchronous and asynchronous programming paradigms, allowing developers to choose the appropriate approach based on their requirements.
Configuration and Packaging: Dropwizard emphasizes a convention-over-configuration approach, making it easy to configure and package applications. It provides a simple YAML configuration for managing application settings. Play also adopts a convention-based approach and uses the Typesafe Config library for configuration. Spring, being highly modular and flexible, provides multiple options for configuration, including XML, Annotations, and Java-based configuration, allowing developers to choose their preferred style.
HTTP Server: Dropwizard comes with an embedded Jetty server by default, ensuring efficient handling of web requests. Play, on the other hand, includes its own lightweight server called Netty, which provides excellent performance and scalability. Spring also provides an embedded web server, Tomcat or Jetty, but it can also be easily deployed to any standard Java EE application server.
Database Integration: Dropwizard has built-in support for integrating with various databases, including JDBC and JPA. It provides seamless integration for managing database migrations. Play offers a powerful ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) called Ebean, which simplifies database management and querying. Spring, being highly modular, offers a wide range of options for database integration, including JDBC, JPA, Hibernate, and NoSQL databases like MongoDB.
In summary, Dropwizard is focused on simplicity, Play offers extensive features and language support, and Spring provides great flexibility and comprehensive options. The choice of framework depends on the specific requirements and preferences of the development team.
Hello Guys
I am a newbie here and not very well experienced with different stacks. I have primarily programmed in C lang/C++ and am somewhat proficient in it.
I am now considering taking up Spring as a new framework to learn to get into Web dev as I know a little Java. But I have concerns about choosing it and am confused with JavaScript frameworks.
Could you please tell me which stack should I choose from?
What is your objective here? It sounds like this is not to solve a particular issue, but is about learning? If so, do you have a preference for things used on the front-end or the backend? That decision would typically lead down a JAVA-oriented path or a JavaScript-oriented path.
If you decide to learn JAVA, then Spring + Spring-boot is a very relevant framework. A competitor is Microprofile + Quarkus. The Quarkus part is newer, but gaining a lot of traction.
Javascript is not a framework, it's programming language that can run in browser or as server side application developed with node.js framework.
Hi everyone! I'm starting a personal project that I've been postponing for a little while and I'm starting with the backend first.
It's an app that needs to query open APIs (It could go up to a hundred APIs) and do filtering and other manipulations onto the data and then store it in my own database. So basically, the end result medium/long term is a lot of data!
Besides filtering/storing data from other APIs, the API will interact with my client application. I should note that the client app attempts to give real-time information.
Question: I would want to launch the API within 6 months as I'm also planning to make it available for other devs through platforms like RapidAPI. With all being said, my question is twofold:
Which backend framework would allow me to do these operations with the best response time possible?
Which framework would be the easiest to deal with deployment on AWS?
Background:
I have a background in Spring since I'm using it at work, I have none in Rails and Django but I don't mind trying something new as long as the learning curve isn't crazy. I know python but not Ruby. Beginner on AWS and choose that one after some research.
Thank you very much, sorry it was a bit long. Cheers
The most relevant part is the central architecture more than the specific backend. For me, it makes sense to go for an event-driven solution. In this case, an event is emitted on every new data, and one or more listeners react to it. In AWS, you can easily get this by storing your data in DynamoDB, which is pretty fast, and have as many lambdas working on the received data (here you can find more details). This way, you keep your worker(s) busy fetching data while others consolidate it. I wouldn't get too crazy on the lambdas, and I'd start with one as there will be only one client by your description. My only concern is how similar the APIs you're consuming are. Depending on that, it may be easier to have different lambdas by target API. My only note on the backend language is that if you want low latency, I'd discard Python and Ruby and choose Go (I know that is not in the list, but given that you're open to learning a new language, you could give it a try). It is easy to learn, has excellent performance, and is the only Lamdba runtime with an X (1.X) in the supported language, making it a great choice.
In the past few months, a project we're working on grew up quite fast. Since we're adding more and more features, I'm considering migrating my Express/TS REST API towards a more solid and more "enterprise-like" framework. Since I am experienced with TypeScript but not so much with Rails nor Play (Scala), I'd like to have some advice on which one could provide the best development experience, and most importantly, the smoothest paradigm transition from the JS/TS world. I've worked on some personal project with Rails, but I've found the Ruby language really distant from what the TypeScript ecosystem and syntax are, whereas on the opposite - during the brief tours I've taken in the past weeks - it's been a pleasure coding in Scala. Obviously, there are some key differences between the two languages - and the two frameworks consequently - but despite all the ROR automation and ease of use I don't despise at all Scala's pragmatic and great features such as static typing, pattern matching, and type inference. So... Please help me out with the choice! Regards
I don't have the Scala experience to compare the two, but I can say that Ruby is a wonderful language. For procedural programming where you don't need a lot of concurrent execution threads, it's superior to Node.JS in my opinion. All of the concepts from Typescript have equivalent syntax in Ruby, but there are fewer symbols (e.g. () => { ... }); ) and more keywords (eg 'do ... end'). It's a very flexible language and allows for a lot of different approaches to how it's written, so coding standards and careful organization is important. In the long run, however, you'll find it quicker to debug than Node.JS and just as powerful.
If you are comfortable with TypeScript, why not evolve to a C# ecosystem? Asp.Net Core + Entity Framework is a mature and well supported technology. As far as I can see in the enterprise market, the most adopted choice is still Java. So, maybe you may have a look to SpringBoot - and ultimately Quarkus.
If software performance is your top priority, then Scala/Play is probably best. If developer productivity is your top priority, then Ruby on Rails is the best choice in my opinion.
The Rails framework is batteries-included. The framework takes care of many things by default so that you don't have to. Logging, security, etc. It's also well-integrated; for example, controllers understand models out of the box. I had a better experience with RoR than with Play.
On the other hand, Scala and the JVM are more performant in general, so they can scale to serve more requests per second on the same hardware.
If you're considering serverless functions, then Scala is probably a better choice because it would be faster to load, giving you better economics.
This is advice regardless of your background and requirements. The Play framework has a terrible and complicated design, don't risk it. I even suggest Spring and Kotlin over it! You can use Scala for small services and Data Engineering stuff and benefit optimizations and threading of JVM. RoR, on the other hand, has a huge development speed, which I believe is a big advantage cause you can handle performance bottlenecks later. Also, Scala has another downside, which is featureful in terms of OO and FP paradigms, which makes anyone write code freely with any personal style and makes it a problem in a team, Hence a coding style has to be defined if there would be Scala development team.
Is learning Spring and Spring Boot for web apps back-end development is still relevant in 2021? Feel free to share your views with comparison to Django/Node.js/ ExpressJS or other frameworks.
Please share some good beginner resources to start learning about spring/spring boot framework to build the web apps.
Java in general, in my opinion, is somewhat outdated in 2021. C# is a better language, and therefore, I think ASP.NET (Core/.NET 5) should be used over it. Node.js isn't bad if you are getting started, or if you need to prototype an app. I use Node in production because of TypeScript, but .NET is a really good framework that has excellent performance.
I am provided with the opportunity to learn one of these technologies during my training. I have prior experience with Spring and found it tough and still haven't figured out when to use what annotations among the thousands of annotations provided. On the other hand, I am very proficient in Java data structures and algorithms (custom comparators, etc.)
I have used Node.js and found it interesting, but I am wondering If I am taking the risk of choosing a framework that has a comparatively lesser scope in the future. One advantage I see with the node.js is the number of tutorials available and the ease with which I can code.
Please recommend which path to take. Is Spring learnable, or should I spend my energy on learning Node.js instead?
I do not know Spring or your company/specialty. Of course it must be learnable and I won't tell you to give up on anything. Java is and will remain valuable.
Regardless, I don't think "lesser scope" is a valid strike against Node.js here. Node.js fulfills JavaScript's original vision of an everywhere language and can run anywhere that Java can. It serves webpages, communicates with hardware, powers command line tools, and builds desktop applications. A huge complexity-saver for teams running many environments (my biggest regret is that it cannot run a microcontroller).
Node.js' biggest practical weakness is that JavaScript is less structured than Java. Luckily, the large influx of Java developers has been helping with this: gaps like constants and private properties are gradually filling in, and TypeScript firms up the types to the point where JavaScript looks a lot like Java.
Probably more potential competition from the larger pool of JS developers, but the compensation is allegedly similar so I guess there is a similar supply/demand situation.
hi this depends where you want to advance . If you want to work for an big aged company with a lot of legacy go the spring way (banks, insurances netflix etc ) if you want to go the new agile fast cloud way learn node js it is much more suited for cloud and micro service even spring cloud can do that as well but it is much more heavier
I am a graduate student working as a software engineer in a company. For my personal development, I want to learn web development. I have some experience in Springboot while I was in university. So I want to continue with spring-boot, but I heard about Django. I'm reaching out to the experts here to help me choose a future proof framework. Django or Spring Boot?
Thanks in Advance
Kamrul Hasan, Don't choose dying technologies with small communities. How many startups do you think use Spring and Django? Use Google Trends to compare technologies. Study the StackOverflow developer survey and job websites to see what technologies are wanted. Few teams can afford to train you to get up to their level so be a life-long learner. Embrace the dawn of a new industry and become an expert.
I recommend you stick to Java Spring as you already have experience with the technology, i suggest you master this technology and then if Django seam to be very interesting to you, django is a framework you can easily pickup as python is also easy, you have to probably be able to manage the context switching between a static typed language like Java to dynamic language like python
It depends on what you want. Spring is Java-based whereas Django is Python-based. The question rather is Java vs Python. I personally recommend Python as it's shorter and easy to learn. But Java has advantages in really big systems.
Hi Kamrul,
It really depends on the kind of project and whether you feel more comfortable with Java or Python. Both are excellent frameworks, with a huge community and learning material. I've been working with Spring Boot since I started coding almost and I can assure you it's the perfect combination for Java. The learning curve may be harder that Django, but once you know the basics you're good to go. I can't tell you much about Django but you must now by now that it has a great reputation with Python users. In any case I don't think you can go wrong with any of these two. My advice is, if you are already familiar with the Spring framework, give Spring Boot a try, because you're going to find out that it just makes the whole Spring experience so much easier. Let us know what you chose!
Both are in active development and had huge community support. It really depends on you what you are comfortable with. Both are married to their respective languages. I choose Python over Java because of its simplicity and readability. To develop in java you need to write a lot of code. That's how java is. The best part I love with Django is its synchronization with Databases.
Starting a new company in 2020, with a whole new stack, is a really interesting opportunity for me to look back over the last 20 years of my career with web software and make the right decision for my company.
And, I went with the most radical decision– which is to ignore "sexy" / "hype" technologies almost entirely, and go back to a stack that I first used over 15 years ago.
For my purposes, we are building a video streaming platform, where I wanted rapid customer-facing feature development, high testability, simple scaling, and ease of hiring great, experienced talent. To be clear, our web platform is NOT responsible for handling the actual bits and bytes of the video itself, that's an entirely different stack. It simply needs to manage the business rules and the customers experience of the video content.
I reviewed a lot of different technologies, but none of them seemed to fit the bill as well as Rails did! The hype train had long left the station with Rails, and the community is a little more sparse than it was previously. And, to be honest, Ruby was the language that was easiest for developers, but I find that most languages out there have adopted many of it's innovations for ease of use – or at least corrected their own.
Even with all of that, Rails still seems like the best framework for developing web applications that are no more complex than they need to be. And that's key to me, because it's very easy to go use React and Redux and GraphQL and a whole host of AWS Lamba's to power my blog... but you simply don't actually NEED that.
There are two choices I made in our stack that were new for me personally, and very different than what I would have chosen even 5 years ago.
1) Postgres - I decided to switch from MySql to Postgres for this project. I wanted to use UUID's instead of numeric primary keys, and knew I'd have a couple places where better JSON/object support would be key. Mysql remains far more popular, but almost every developer I respect has switched and preferred Postgres with a strong passion. It's not "sexy" but it's considered "better".
2) Stimulus.js - This was definitely the biggest and wildest choice to make. Stimulus is a Javascript framework by my old friend Sam Stephenson (Prototype.js, rbenv, turbolinks) and DHH, and it is a sort of radical declaration that your Javascript in the browser can be both powerful and modern AND simple. It leans heavily on the belief that HTML-is-good and that data-* attributes are good. It focuses on the actions and interactions and not on the rendering aspects. It took me a while to wrap my head around, and I still have to remind myself, that server-side-HTML is how you solve many problems with this stack, and avoid trying to re-render things just in the browser. So far, I'm happy with this choice, but it is definitely a radical departure from the current trends.
Pros of Dropwizard
- Quick and easy to get a new http service going27
- Health monitoring23
- Metrics integration20
- Easy setup20
- Good conventions18
- Good documentation14
- Lightweight14
- Java Powered13
- Good Testing frameworks10
- Java powered, lightweight7
- Simple5
- Scalable4
- Great performance, Good in prod3
- Open source2
- All in one-productive-production ready-makes life easy2
Pros of Play
- Scala81
- Web-friendly architecture55
- Built on akka55
- Stateless50
- High-scalable47
- Fast46
- Open source40
- Java34
- High velocity27
- Fun24
- Lightweight9
- Non-blocking io8
- Developer friendly6
- Simple template engine5
- Scalability4
- Pure love3
- Resource efficient2
Pros of Spring
- Java230
- Open source157
- Great community136
- Very powerful123
- Enterprise114
- Lot of great subprojects64
- Easy setup60
- Convention , configuration, done44
- Standard40
- Love the logic31
- Good documentation13
- Dependency injection11
- Stability11
- MVC9
- Easy6
- Makes the hard stuff fun & the easy stuff automatic3
- Strong typing3
- Code maintenance2
- Best practices2
- Maven2
- Great Desgin2
- Easy Integration with Spring Security2
- Integrations with most other Java frameworks2
- Java has more support and more libraries1
- Supports vast databases1
- Large ecosystem with seamless integration1
- OracleDb integration1
- Live project1
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Cons of Dropwizard
- Slightly more confusing dependencies2
- Not on ThoughtWorks radar since 20141
Cons of Play
- Evolves fast, keep up with releases3
- Unnecessarily complicated1
Cons of Spring
- Draws you into its own ecosystem and bloat15
- Verbose configuration3
- Poor documentation3
- Java3
- Java is more verbose language in compare to python2