What is Spring Boot?
Spring Boot is a framework built on top of the Spring framework that makes it fast to create production ready Java applications. It removes most of the manual configuration through auto configuration, ships with an embedded server so you can run a jar directly, and offers starter dependencies that bundle common libraries. In short, it lets you build Spring apps with far less setup.
What it gives you
- Auto configuration: sensible defaults set up automatically based on what is on the classpath.
- Starters: dependency bundles like spring boot starter web that pull in everything you need.
- Embedded server: a built in Tomcat so you run the app as a simple jar.
- Production features: health checks and metrics through Actuator.
Plain Spring is powerful but needs a lot of XML or Java configuration. Spring Boot keeps that power while removing most of the boilerplate.
The clean one liner is Spring Boot is Spring with auto configuration, starters, and an embedded server, so you write less setup. Mentioning that it favours convention over configuration signals you understand its philosophy.
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