Top 10 Popular Java Frameworks Every Developer Should Know in 2024

Java frameworks are essentially blocks of pre-written code, to which a programmer may add his code to solve specific problems. Several Java frameworks exist, all of which have their pros and cons. All of them can be used to solve problems in a variety of fields and domains. Java frameworks reduce the amount of coding from scratch that programmers have to do to come up with a solution.

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Significant Advantages of Java frameworks

The programmer’s basic skeleton is provided by the framework, while the programmer only has to add blocks to customize the code according to the issue at hand. Java frameworks provide users with scores of advantages. Here are some of the significant advantages of Java frameworks.

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Security

 Security is among the most important features of Java frameworks. Java frameworks are generally very extensive. Scores of programmers have worked together to build the framework to suit the needs of an even greater number of programmers. A vast number of applications are designed to work on each java framework.

Given the same, it is evident that the framework will need to contain certain features to secure this data. Still, it is often observed that security flaws persist in Java frameworks even after the framework has been released for use. For such circumstances, these frameworks will have a portal to report these flaws so that they may be addressed in future releases.

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Support Groups

Most Java frameworks, especially the frameworks that are used by a large number of programmers, have what is known as support groups. These groups are clusters of programmers using the same framework, which helps each other in resolving issues faced while using the framework.

Since the original developers of the framework’s customer service will seldom be enough to solve the issues faced by thousands of users of a framework, these support groups act as a community that helps solve problems in a much more swift manner. These support groups will generally take the form of online forums, and the framework may have multiple groups on different portals.

Efficiency

As mentioned previously, the amount of code to be written by the programmer is reduced significantly due to Java frameworks’ presence. Imagine having to write a Java program from scratch every time you need to solve the smallest of problems.

Now imagine the skeleton of a program, or even the basic structure of a program, being ready for you, with you only having to add lines of code to suit your particular needs. The second option will lead to great savings of time as well as energy. The efficiency in programming provided by Java frameworks is unparalleled by any other such element.

Expense

 Java frameworks have extremely low maintenance costs. Especially compared to the monetary savings these frameworks provided by reducing the time required for coding, the expenses associated with Java frameworks can often be minuscule.

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Following is a list of the primary Java frameworks

1. Spring Framework

The first member of the Java frameworks list is the Spring Framework. The Spring Framework is among the most powerful and most widely used Java frameworks available. The Spring framework is generally used for Enterprise Java. The Spring framework is extremely versatile and can be used to construct most types of Java applications.

Its most prevalent uses are in web application development, and it is used by a number of tech giants, including Netflix and Amazon. Its main advantage is that it is extremely lightweight and does not require a web server’s invocation. In terms of efficiency, it is among the highest-ranked Java frameworks available. Its compatibility with JDBC means that it is also very accurate, with increased productivity. It is extremely easy to use and can generally be used even by beginners to Java frameworks. It also provides backward compatibility as well as testability.

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2. Play

Play is a Java framework meant for both web and mobile applications. Its main applicability is in applications that are required to be highly scaled. The Play framework is also compatible with a number of languages apart from Java, such as Python and Ruby. The Play framework is not based on the Enterprise standards of Java. It is generally used for content creation based web applications as well as Scala applications.

The Play framework is primarily known for being user friendly as well as beginner-friendly. It allows for convention over configuration and is also able to show error messages in the browser itself. It is especially effective in high-performance applications due to its support of non-blocking I/O. It is certainly among the more failure tolerant frameworks and also showcases great flexibility.

3. Hibernate

Hibernate is an object-relational mapping framework. The Hibernate framework’s main selling point is that it is very efficient when it comes to solving an often faced problem when working with databases on Java – that of a mismatch between the handling of data by object-oriented programming languages and relational database management systems. This is done by developing persistent classes and allowing the programmer to communicate effectively with the database with minimal changes to the code.

Being able to perform database operations of objects in Java is an issue when it comes to most other frameworks, but the Hibernate framework slaves this problem very efficiently. It is used by a number of large companies, including IBM, Oracle, and Accenture, due to its advantages in portability and maintainability. It is free to use and completely open-source as well.

4. Dropwizard

Dropwizard is another Java framework that is used primarily for high-performance applications. Its main job is the development of RESTful web services swiftly and rapidly. The Dropwizard framework is extremely user friendly as well as versatile, given the fact that it is essentially a collection of various Java libraries. This also means that it is usable in most Java applications. All the dependencies are clustered into a single ecosystem in Dropwizard.

Dropwizard allows the programmer to perform swift prototyping natively. It also supports the highest number of Java libraries for any framework and is especially palpable for its vast support of Java’s open-source libraries. All of these features enable the Dropwizard to be among the most productive frameworks. Though it is still up and coming, the growth of Dropwizard has been prodigious over the past few years.

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5. Struts

Strut is a framework for Java that has been developed by the Apache Software Foundation. It is based on Java Enterprise. The Struts framework is easy to use for veteran users of Java frameworks and supports for kinds of web applications developed in Java. Struts 2 is the more prevalently used version of Struts and is currently implemented by Infosys and Accenture. MVC based applications in Java are mostly developed in Struts 2 due to its use of the Java Servlet API.

Since Struts is primarily meant for regular and veteran Java web developers, it also contains a wide variety of advanced features that can be implemented in the programmer’s web application. Among the most useful features is the fact that Struts framework applications can be integrated seamlessly with applications built on other frameworks as well.

6. Blade

The Blade framework is another Java framework that can be utilized for high-performance applications. It is also very lightweight, with the source code being less than 500 kb. The Blade framework is primarily an MVC framework that serves as a routing interface for RESTful. It also helps in efficient and effective synchronization of data with the website. The Blade interface immensely improves the user’s ability to understand the RESTful API and features an unprecedentedly clean interface that makes it easy to use.

A significant advantage of the Blade framework is its support of web jar resources. It is also able to support plugin extensions. Alongside this, a large number of files can be configured in the Blade framework simultaneously. The Blade framework is also known for its support of cross-site request forgery and cross-site scripting defense systems.

7. Google Web Toolkit

This is an important addition to the Java frameworks list. The Google Web Toolkit framework is a multipurpose open-source framework. It is available for free and allows programmers to establish the Java code written by them on the client-side as a Javascript. Due to the fact that Google has established the Google Web Toolkit framework, a vast number of Google products are written using this framework.

A pretty consequential feature of the Google Web Toolkit framework is how fast it is and the kind of swiftness it brings to the whole programming process. Ajax applications can also be developed and debugged in Java using the Google Web Toolkit framework. The Google Web Toolkit is extremely user friendly and easy to use, with an intuitive user interface and important features such as reusability, bookmarking, and history management.

8. Vaadin

The Vaadin framework is specifically centered around the accessibility of UX. The Vaadin framework allows the programmer to build highly customizable web applications by providing him with a streamlined and easy to use platform for development. The Vaadin framework allows users to access the DOM directly from the Java Virtual Machine. A significant feature of the Vaadin framework is the fact that all of the communication that occurs between the server and the browser is completely automated by it.

The data can be bound using both MVC and MVP through the Vaadin framework. It comes with support for the Spring framework built into it, and JVM languages such as Scala and Kotlin are also supported by it. It also has WebSocket support, which allows for automatic communication between the server and the client. Both Java and HTML can be used for the building of views in the Vaadin framework. It has an intuitive user interface with support for drag and drops interactions, which significantly simplifies the whole process of web development for programmers of all levels of experience.

9. JavaServer Faces

The JavaServer Faces framework is a Java framework developed by Oracle. Its primary job and utility is the development of user interfaces and dashboards for web-based applications. The basis of the JavaServer Faces framework is the MVC software design pattern. It is a user interface framework that is completely component-based. It is among the most efficient Java frameworks available if your motive is to build native web-based applications.

The JavaServer Faces framework is based on the Java enterprise standards. It has among the most extensive set of Java libraries compatible with it and provides a lot of cross framework compatibility. It also offers a whole suite of advanced tools for expert programmers to use. The most important feature of the JavaServer Faces framework is that it allows for seamless integration among the back-end code and the user interface. The introduction of a new framework or the alteration of code is not required.

10. Grails

The Grails framework is based on the Groovy JVM programming language. While the language in which programming is done is slightly different from Java, the syntax is pretty much the same, and Java code is integral into the Grails framework. The code is compiled to the Java Virtual Machine bytecode in the Grails framework. It has an intuitive user interface, which makes it among the easiest to use frameworks in this Java frameworks list. It is especially used by large online retailers as well as IT companies. 

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Wrapping up

Java frameworks considerably reduce programming time and provide developers with important features such as security, efficiency, and productivity. While all frameworks have their pros and cons, merely using a framework itself can improve your programming experience by leaps and bounds.

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