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Spring vs Symfony: What are the differences?

Introduction

This article compares the key differences between Spring and Symfony frameworks. Both frameworks are popular choices for developing web applications, but they have distinct features and characteristics.

  1. Language and Ecosystem: Spring is mainly used in the Java ecosystem, while Symfony is used in the PHP ecosystem. Spring utilizes the Java programming language and leverages the extensive Java ecosystem, including libraries, tools, and existing modules. Symfony, on the other hand, is based on PHP and its associated ecosystem.

  2. Approach to Dependency Injection: Spring emphasizes dependency injection as a core feature for managing dependencies between components. It provides an extensive and flexible dependency injection mechanism that allows for loose coupling and easy unit testing. Symfony also supports dependency injection but follows a slightly different approach called inversion of control (IoC) container.

  3. Architecture and Philosophy: Spring follows the principle of convention-over-configuration where it promotes the use of sensible defaults and conventions to simplify development. Symfony, on the other hand, follows a configuration-over-convention approach, providing a highly customizable and configurable framework.

  4. Community and Adoption: Spring has a larger and more mature community compared to Symfony. It has been around for a longer time and has gained widespread adoption, particularly in the enterprise Java world. Symfony, although not as old as Spring, has also established a strong and active community within the PHP community.

  5. Integration with Other Technologies: Spring integrates well with various Java technologies, such as Hibernate, JPA, and Spring Data, providing seamless support for database integration. Symfony, on the other hand, integrates smoothly with PHP technologies, such as Doctrine, a powerful ORM for database access.

  6. Learning Curve and Documentation: Spring has a steeper learning curve compared to Symfony due to its extensive features and concepts. However, it offers comprehensive documentation and a wealth of resources for learning and troubleshooting. Symfony, although relatively easier to grasp, also provides good documentation and a range of tutorials and guides to assist developers.

In summary, Spring and Symfony have key differences in terms of language and ecosystem, approach to dependency injection, architecture and philosophy, community and adoption, integration with other technologies, and learning curve and documentation. Both frameworks have their strengths and cater to different development needs.

Advice on Spring and Symfony
Needs advice
on
DjangoDjangoGolangGolang
and
SpringSpring

So currently I have experience in Node.js, but just to expand my stack knowledge and for getting backend developer roles, I thought of learning another backend-related language/framework. I have heard about Django, Golang, and Spring. I am mostly trying for backend API roles, and far as I've heard, Django REST framework can be a pain to work with. I've heard there are issues with Golang for package management (like how recently the Gorilla web toolkit is archived) and as for Spring, it's a vast ecosystem to learn so not sure if it's worth investing in. I would like to know which tool/framework to learn, which can help me get high-paying jobs and has a lot of scopes, and also which is great for making REST APIs. Any other tool that can do the job better than these three is also welcome!

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
FastAPIFastAPI

Try thats, is really lightweight and little bit similar like node, before you jump on djanggo stuff, hopefully it's helpful https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/

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Bogdan Pop
Needs advice
on
.NET.NETNode.jsNode.js
and
SpringSpring

Hello, I am trying to learn a backend framework besides Node.js. I am not sure what to pick between ASP.NET Core (C#) and Spring Boot (Java). Any advice, any suggestion is highly appreciated. I am planning to build only Web APIs (no desktop applications or something like that). One thing to mention is that I have no experience in Java or C#. I am trying to learn one of those 2 and stick to it.

UPDATE: The project I am trying to build is a SaaS using microservices that supports multi tenancy.

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Replies (3)
Dominik Liebler
Lead Software Engineer · | 9 upvotes · 60.5K views
Recommends

I'd recommend to learn Spring as it is very widespread in the industry and provides a lot of easy integration into most of the common backend tech stacks. Rather than learning Java you could look into Kotlin. It's a very consistent, stable and well-thought language in my opinion and not as verbose as Java. Many problems can be solved with Kotlin in a clear and elegant way while also always having the option to use data structures and libs in JVM. It is also has a very good support in Spring.

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Recommends

Why not pick Django or Flask (both Python)

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Lionel Cawood
Technical Team Lead at inTime Agile Logistics · | 3 upvotes · 30.9K views
Recommends

I have worked in a Spring environment for many years and I still love working with it. Super quick to get a base application running and get coding, thanks to Spring Boot's easy and straight forward integration with Tomcat. However, I will try and answer this question from another perspective: look at topics such as popularity of the language, average statistics on community contribution to their repositories and hiring availability from companies. If you are going down the API route for backend, leverege on your experience in the Node world by looking into ExpressJS (or even NestJS). The JavaScript world is really excellerating at a lightning speed, and I could recommend exploring those worlds a bit more, should it be a comfort level for you. However, my biased answer is tryout Java, followed by Spring afterwards. No disrespect to any .NET developers out there, as there are a few topics in there which are fantastically implemented.

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Needs advice
on
DjangoDjango
and
SpringSpring

Should I continue learning Django or take this Spring opportunity? I have been coding in python for about 2 years. I am currently learning Django and I am enjoying it. I also have some knowledge of data science libraries (Pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, PyTorch). I am currently enhancing my web development and software engineering skills and may shift later into data science since I came from a medical background. The issue is that I am offered now a very trustworthy 9 months program teaching Java/Spring. The graduates of this program work directly in well know tech companies. Although I have been planning to continue with my Python, the other opportunity makes me hesitant since it will put me to work in a specific roadmap with deadlines and mentors. I also found on glassdoor that Spring jobs are way more than Django. Should I apply for this program or continue my journey?

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Replies (2)
Recommends
on
DjangoDjango

I would recommend you change and get the easy path, but there's no easy path. When you are working in something like development you have to learn every day, stick with a specific niche, learn from others to apply to yours, and improve to be a specialist. If Spring and Java are technologies you're not enjoying, why are you going to waste your time with them? If you check the market, the higher salaries are in the specialization. For example, I was sticking with Erlang and Elixir in high volume, high availability, and concurrent systems. Don't check the number of works about Python, Java, or whatever else, you only need one job, and you have no idea about the quality of these. Most of the demanding jobs for Java, Python, and PHP are usually not covered because they request a lot and pay too less. Believe me, there are not a lot of Erlang and Elixir jobs and I always found one. And finally, don't expect too much from big companies, they are all glamorous from the outside, but they are usually a deception when you start working for them.

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Axel Dürkop
at Hamburg University of Technology · | 5 upvotes · 49.3K views
Recommends
on
DjangoDjangoFlaskFlask

Hi Mohamed, I love Django for its "batteries included" philosophy, meaning that you get the backend for free and a lot of stuff for database abstraction. But often you just need some kind of webserver backend logic and Django is oversized for that purpose. In that case I go with Flask which has a modular approach so that you need to gather the parts yourself that you need. If you come from a Python background I think there is a lot to explore with Python for the web and it very well into the data science landscape.

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Quade Claxton
Needs advice
on
DjangoDjango
and
SymfonySymfony

Hi everyone! I'm starting a personal project that I've been postponing for a little while and I need a bit of advice. I thought that it will be a bit of a challenge but I figure the best way to learn is by doing!

The plan is to build an app with loads of automation build in for reporting which would make it very easy to perform tasks, The plan is to build something similar to an HR app using microservice architecture, separating services e.g. employee data, payroll (including calculations based on easily entered info like tax %), employee services (vacation, sick day allowance booking and tabulation) and automated reporting on a pre-defined schedule (bi-weekly, monthly).

I am considering Django (as I currently know a bit of Python) and Symfony (as a friend who is a developer recommended it) but I am well aware there are other (and probably better) tools out there for the job (like maybe ExpressJS/Node.js for the backend and React/Vue.js for the front).

Background:

I have got knowledge as a DevOps, Site Reliability and Cloud engineer so once the app is built I'm very comfortable taking it to deployment.

Thank you all for your help and responses.

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Replies (1)
Ibrahim Gunduz
Software Developer at PayU · | 2 upvotes · 49.6K views
Recommends

Hi. I guess it all depends on what your goal is. If you wanna make fast prototyping Django or ExpressJNodeJS might be really good candidates. You can write your services quickly and easily by using anyone of them. Maybe we can also put Laravel in the same category.

Symfony is also another application framework that comes with many reusable components. It provides great flexibility with the configuration and dependency management solutions. So that you can inject or override anything, anytime without doing something hack-ish. You don't have to depend on any components that come with the framework and, replace them with whatever you prefer unless encounter any integration issues. I can say that Laravel also provides most of the Symfony futures as it uses its components under the hood. However, my personal experience with Laravel was not so good because it made me feel like I use a modernized version of Codeigniter. But anyway. :) So if I have to choose one of them, I would choose Symfony.

From the backend perspective, all of those have some pros and cons. For example, If strict type declaration is important for you and you don't like code magics like monkey patching etc., maybe Python and NodeJS might not be good candidates and maybe you could choose Symfony/php. However, in this case, you'll be missed out on the most powerful future of NodeJS which is non-blocking io. if you plan to do IO-intensive works, I think it would be a big loss.

So, maybe I can recommend you to have a look at typescript + NestJS also. https://nestjs.com/ The futures that NestJS provides might be a good balance between the strengths of Symfony and NodeJS.

As I'm backend dev., I haven't work too many frontend projects but from my personal experience, I loved ReactJS more than Vue although Vue was simpler. Maybe a front-end developer can give us more helpful details about those.

Hope it helps.

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Needs advice
on
DjangoDjangoLaravelLaravel
and
SpringSpring

Hi all. I want to rewrite my system. I was a complete newbie 4 years ago and have developed a comprehensive business / finance web application that has been running successfully for 3 years (I am a business person and not a developer primarily although it seems I have become a developer). Front-end is written in native PHP (no framework) and jQuery with backend and where many processes run in MySQL. Hosted on Linux and also sends emails with attachments etc. The system logic is great and the business has grown and the system is creaking and needs to be modernised. I feel I would stick with MySql as DB and update / use Django / Spring or Laravel (because its php which I understand). To me, PHP feels old fashioned. I don't mind learning new things and also I want to set the system up that it can be easily migrated to Android/iOS app with SQLite. I would probably employ an experienced developer while also doing some myself. Please provide advice -- from my research it seems Spring/Java is the way to go ... not sure. Thanks

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Replies (4)
Recommends
on
LaravelLaravelVue.jsVue.js

PhP might be old fashionned but Laravel is really great. I've tried nodeJs backend with express, python with flask and a little bit of serverless, and quite frankly, laravel was by far the best in my opinion. It has a lot of official packages that speeds up development (from authentification to serverless deployement), it also uses Eloquent ORM that support Mysql databases. Finally it works great with VueJs for the front end development.

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Harry Jin

I recommend ExpressJS or NestJS as BackEnd and React as Front-End and PostgreSQL as the database. The reason is as follows. First of all, since it is a financial system, various services will exist, and each service must be well connected and combined with each other. The organic combination of small services that work very well is the foundation of a great system. For this, it is best to use Node.js based, and I think ExpressJS or NestJS is the best choice. We recommend choosing React or Vue as the FrontEnd. PostgreSQL is currently the best performing database. These three combinations have many examples, and their superiority has been confirmed by my implementation in many projects already. If you are interested in my advice and have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

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Jayson Pamittan
Software Engineer - Level III at Arch Global Services · | 4 upvotes · 103K views
Recommends
on
LaravelLaravel

On my end for me it's better to choose Laravel. It has very good documentation and easy to code. The framework supports MVC and you can create either monolithic or API only. The community is also big. If you combined a Domain Driven Development (DDD) and Test Driven Development (TDD) on Laravel then it will be a superb.

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Since you are using PHP more natural is Python - it can handle high traffic - Python is very effective in coding. Python is superset of Java and C++ - True Object Oriented and have very clear syntax (Spring is hard to learn and debug - you can be confused many times). It is human readable you can code 2-4 times faster with small speed sacrifice. Jinja2 is more faster/flexible Django - whatever Django is better with ORM. Flask is just proposal - many other options of web servers.

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Needs advice
on
SpringSpring
and
Spring BootSpring Boot

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?

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Replies (2)
Recommends
on
QuarkusQuarkus

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.

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Recommends
on
Spring BootSpring Boot

Javascript is not a framework, it's programming language that can run in browser or as server side application developed with node.js framework.

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Needs advice
on
DjangoDjangoRailsRails
and
SpringSpring
in

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:

  1. Which backend framework would allow me to do these operations with the best response time possible?

  2. 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

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Replies (1)
Jorge Velasco
Full Stack Developer at Fintual · | 8 upvotes · 96.2K views

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.

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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.

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Replies (1)

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.

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Needs advice
on
Node.jsNode.js
and
SpringSpring

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?

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Replies (2)
Recommends
on
Node.jsNode.jsTypeScriptTypeScript

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.

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Recommends

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

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Needs advice
on
DjangoDjango
and
SpringSpring

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

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Replies (5)
Recommends
on
SpringSpring

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.

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Sulaiman Sanusi
Recommends
on
SpringSpring

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

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Christoph Becker
Recommends
on
DjangoDjangoSpringSpring

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.

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Gonzalo Fernández
Recommends

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!

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Recommends
on
DjangoDjango

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.

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Decisions about Spring and Symfony
Danilo Polani
Senior Software Engineer at WeRoad · | 7 upvotes · 97.6K views

For a full-stack app or just simple APIs I'd go 100% with Laravel. You get a clean architecture, beautiful documentation and friendly and always growing community: the project is yours, from A to Z. With their docs and resources like Laracast you can start from zero and build what you want, when you want. The learning curve is definitely smaller when compared to Symfony and, with the help of a bit of "magic" (Facades etc.) you get the same results in the half of the time with cleaner code.

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