A Comprehensive Guide to the Top 7 Spring Boots Project Ideas in 2023

Spring Boot is an essential component of the Java ecosystem that allows developers to create independent applications. It consists of an in-built system that enables you to perform tasks such as data binding and resource management while developing an app. By eliminating a complicated configuration process, Spring Boot helps developers to design and deploy apps more rapidly while simultaneously increasing their efficiency and productivity. Due to these advantages, Spring Boot is quite popular among Java developers. According to a 2021 Java Developer Productivity Report, 62% of surveyed developers are using Spring Boot as their main framework technology. The best way to learn about Spring Boot in greater detail is a hands-on experience—just build Spring Boot projects yourself! And to get you started, we have compiled a list of the top seven Spring Boot project ideas that you can try in 2023.

What is Spring Boot?

Spring Boot is an open-source Java-based framework that facilitates the formation of Spring applications with the help of microservices. Created and maintained by an American software and services company Pivotal Software, Inc., Spring Boot can be applied to both conventional Web Application Resource (WAR) deployment and independent Java applications. Developers can use Spring Boot to jump straight into coding without wasting time on designing and configuring the environment. 

A Spring Boot Project Example

The CRUD web application is a Spring Boot project. CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete—the four basic operations that software needs to perform. Developers use CRUD to create data, access it from the User Interface (UI) by reading that data, and even update and delete it. 

CRUD is designed and developed using Angular 9 and Spring Boot. Angular 9 is a front-end JavaScript framework, which provides an ecosystem for the development of client-side web applications. Spring Boot, on the other hand, is an open-source back-end framework that offers an interface called CrudRepository containing the methods for CRUD operations.

The Importance of Spring

Spring improves the efficiency, simplicity, and security of Java programming for developers. Besides this, it has certain features that make it an important framework for developers: 

1. Flexibility

Developers rely on Spring because it consists of flexible libraries such as streaming TV and online shopping. With Spring’s extensive third-party libraries, developers can build different applications such as the Spring Boot MVC web application and Spring Boot CRUD.

2. Productivity

Spring Boot combines application context and an embedded web server to make it easy to build microservices. It thus streamlines Java programming tasks and enhances productivity. 

3. Speed

When a developer uses Spring, they find that both starting and shutting down are incredibly fast, and that execution is automatically optimized. 

4. Security

Spring has a well-established track record of handling security problems quickly and responsibly. Additionally, Spring checks third-party dependencies carefully and distributes regular updates among its users to maintain the highest level of security for users’ data and applications.

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Top 7 Spring Boot Project Ideas for Beginners

Implementing knowledge is the best approach to learning technology. To master Spring Boot, you should build projects that will help you enhance your skills and give you practical experience. To help you along, we’ve compiled some Spring Boot project ideas you can try in 2023.

1. Build a Web Application with Spring Boot

It’s a simple project for beginners in the web developing world who want to start their Spring learning journey. In this case, you build a website for a business to initiate this Spring Boot project. This project can be done in 15 to 20 minutes. You’ll need Spring Boot plug-ins such as Maven 3.2+ or Gradle 4+ for this project. 

2. Set up a Contact Us Page (Handle Form Submission)

For a Contact Us page on a website, use the Spring Initializr to construct a web controller (that manages HTTP requests) in the app and then run the application. Since it is a simple Spring Boot project, it’s highly recommended if you are a beginner interested in Spring Boot.

3. Create REST Service for an Education Site

REST refers to REpresentational State Transfer and is a style of software architecture to build scalable web services. Spring Boot is needed to build a REST administration for an educational website that offers courses to students. Asking for the names of students who have enrolled in a particular class or registering a student on the website are examples of REST administrative services. You require Spring Boot plug-ins such as Maven 3.0+, IDE, and JDK 1.8+ to complete this project.

4. Set up a System for Managing Employees

Create an Employee Management System (EMS) for a company. An EMS should have the option to add an employee, view all employees’ profiles, delete a profile, and sort employee data. For this project, you need plug-ins such as an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Spring Data JPA, Spring Boot 2.2, Maven 3.2+, and Spring Framework 5.2. Before taking this on, do remember that this is a complex and time-consuming project. 

5. Work on Project Sagan

Project Sagan is an application that guides developers working with the Spring framework to build modern web applications. This well-known open-source project works with Spring Boot’s official website and can be found on GitHub. By working on this project, you will become well-versed in Spring Boot’s various functionalities. These include the Spring Boot framework, Elasticsearch, Thymeleaf User Interface, and Gradle.

6. Use the Spring Boot Starter Web to Create a Web Application

The Spring Boot Starter Web allows you to make an app that uses RESTful services. These are lightweight, maintainable, and scalable services used to create Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for web applications. In this project, you will require the Spring Initializr plug-in to get the project up and running. You then add the Spring Boot Starter Web to manage the auto-design that any web application needs.

7. Use LDAP to Authenticate a User

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication is the process of approving a user’s identity with a directory server (like OpenDJ or MS Active Directory) by using both a password and a username. You can work on an LDAP-based authentication system using Spring Security. The more you work on this project, the more you will learn about LDAP, which will enhance your capabilities to work in cybersecurity. 

Advantages 

• Applications based on Spring can be developed quickly and easily
• Spring Boot saves memory space in an application using the Spring Initializr
• Spring Boot assists developers to integrate Java web application servers such as Tomcat, Jetty, or Undertow directly into an application

Disadvantages

• Spring Boot creates a lot of unused dependencies, like the Guava dependency, that makes the deployment file big
• Converting an existing Spring Boot project into an application using Spring Boot is a difficult and time-consuming process
• Spring Boot is not suitable for large-scale projects

Application and Uses 

Here are three areas where Spring Boots are widely applicable:

• Developers can create an online bookstore application, which allows users to add books to the cart and buy them when required
• Spring allows developers to create useful APIs for websites, such as REST web API and Java mail API 
• Developers can create a secure admin dashboard on an organization’s website 

Is Spring Boot Good for Big Projects?

Spring Boot isn’t good for large projects because it creates a lot of dependencies, resulting in large deployment files. Furthermore, if you want to use the Spring system, you need to gain an in-depth understanding of Spring history, which can take up a lot of your time. So if you’re interested, be prepared to commit to it!

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