Survey: Which Java Frameworks Are Actually Used in Production in 2024

Survey: Which Java Frameworks Are Chosen for Production in 2024

The Java ecosystem continues to amaze with its maturity and diversity. Despite the emergence of new languages, Java remains one of the main languages for enterprise development. But which framework do teams choose today for real production workloads? We analyzed the results of a recent survey among 2000+ Java developers (conducted in Q2 2024 by JVM developer communities) and highlighted the main trends.

The Undisputed Leader — Spring Boot

The perennial king of Java frameworks — Spring Boot. It is used by more than 68% of respondents in production. The reasons are obvious: a huge community, thousands of ready-made starters, built-in Tomcat/Jetty server, easy integration with databases, clouds, and monitoring systems. Spring Boot remains the "gold standard" for microservices and monoliths.

Quarkus — The Main "Rising Trend"

The framework from Red Hat is gaining popularity: 15% of respondents already use it in production. Quarkus attracts with ultra-fast startup and low memory consumption — ideal for Kubernetes and serverless. It is especially popular among teams migrating from Spring Boot to a lighter architecture.

Micronaut — A Choice for Cloud Projects

Another "lightweight" framework — Micronaut — received 9% of the votes. Its strong point is AOT (Ahead-of-Time) compilation, which provides minimal initialization time. Micronaut is often chosen for IoT, real-time systems, and serverless functions.

Jakarta EE (formerly Java EE) — Legacy or Stability?

Classic Jakarta EE (including Payara, WildFly, GlassFish) is still used in 12% of production projects. These are mainly large enterprise systems written 5-10 years ago. However, there are significantly fewer new projects on Jakarta EE.

Other Frameworks

• Vert.x — about 3% (relevant for high-load network services).
• Play Framework — 2% (a niche solution, often for Scala/Java hybrids).
• Apache Struts — less than 1% (outdated, but still found in legacy systems).

Trends and Conclusions

The main conclusion of the survey: Spring Boot remains the absolute leader, but the market is clearly moving towards lightweight, natively-compiled frameworks (Quarkus and Micronaut). If you are just starting to learn Java for production — definitely choose Spring Boot. If you need maximum performance on Kubernetes — take a closer look at Quarkus.

We hope this overview helps you make the right choice for your next project. And which framework do you use? Share in the comments!