What is Spring Boot?
Answer
Spring Boot is an opinionated, convention-over-configuration extension of the Spring Framework that simplifies bootstrapping and developing Spring-based applications. Released in 2014 by Pivotal (now VMware), it eliminates most of the boilerplate XML configuration and manual dependency management required in traditional Spring applications. Key features: (1) Auto-configuration: automatically configures Spring application based on the dependencies on the classpath; (2) Starter dependencies: curated dependency descriptors that group related dependencies together (spring-boot-starter-web, spring-boot-starter-data-jpa); (3) Embedded servers: includes embedded Tomcat, Jetty, or Undertow — no need to deploy WAR files; (4) Actuator: production-ready monitoring and management endpoints; (5) Spring Initializr: start.spring.io — web tool to generate project structure; (6) No XML configuration: Java-based configuration with annotations. Spring Boot is the most popular Java web framework, used at Netflix, Amazon, Alibaba, eBay, and most enterprises building Java microservices.