Question

What are the reasons you should build your web application with raw Java Servlets or by using Spring MVC (or any other frameworks)?

Are there exceptions when you should avoid Spring MVC, what are the advantages of doing it with Raw Servlets?

Answer 1

If you’re building a really quick and dirty demo that you have no intention of extending later, spring can result in a lot of additional configuration issues (not really if you’ve done it before, but I always end up fighting with it one way or another), so that might be a time to consider just using plain old servlets. Generally though, anything beyond just a super fast and dirty demo, using some form of MVC framework is going to make life in the future a lot easier and is also in line with best practices. Spring makes things super easy, just have to spend some time on the front end configuring everything.

I should note, there’s nothing you can do with java servlets that you can’t do with Spring. The big difference is setup time.

Edit: It’s worth noting that when I posted this answer, I was unaware of Spring Boot that is actually quite easy to get up an running using either an embedded web server or a more conventional web container. Here’s a link to a quick start example: http://projects.spring.io/spring-boot/#quick-start