Spring Initializr

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Spring Initializr: The Spring Boot Project Generator

The Spring Initializr is a spring boot project generator. It is a web-based tool provided by the Pivotal Web Service. It allows us to generate the Spring boot project structure. Further, it facilitates with the extensible API for developing JVM-based projects.

The Spring Initializr provides several options for the project that are expressed in a metadata model. The metadata model is used for configuring the required dependencies.

The Spring Starter supports both the build tool Gradle and Maven.

Spring Initializr Interface

The Spring Initializr provides a user-friendly interface. It provides various versions of programming language (Java, Kotlin, Groovy), SpringBoot, and build tools (maven and Gradle).

It let us choose different versions of the following:

Build tools

It allows us to choose the build tool such as:

  • Maven
  • Gradle

Language

It allows us to choose the programming language such as:

  • Java
  • Kotlin
  • Groovy

Spring Boot Versions

It allows us to choose the spring Boot Versions such as:

  • 2.4.0 (SNAPSHOT)
  • 2.4.0 (M1)
  • 2.3.2 (SNAPSHOT)
  • 2.3.1
  • 2.2.9 (SNAPSHOT)
  • 2.2.8
  • 2.1.16 (SNAPSHOT)
  • 2.1.15

Project Metadata

It allows us to describe the project’s metadata such as:

  • Group
  • Artifact
  • Name
  • Description
  • Package name

Packaging

It provides the following packaging options:

  • jar
  • war

Java version

It provides freedom to choose the Java versions such as:

  • Java 14
  • Java 11
  • Java 8

The interface of Spring Initializr looks like:

Spring Initializr

Supported Tools

  • The Spring Initilaizr projects can be imported in IDE STS, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, NetBeans, Eclipse. Or we can download the supported plugin for these IDEs.
  • We can download the NetBeans IDE plugin from Here. For VSCode, download the plugin from here.
  • For Custom Web UI Click Here.
  • It also supports the command-line with the Spring Boot CLI or cURL or HTTPie.

Spring Initializr Modules

Spring Initializr has the following module:

initializr-actuator (optional): The actuator provides additional information and statistics on project generation.

initializr-bom: The BOM stands for Bill Of Materials. It is a special type of POM that controls the versions of project dependencies. It provides a position at central to define and update dependencies versions. It is a flexible module that adds dependencies in the module without worrying about the versions. The BOM is a collection of parts, items, assemblies, and other materials that are required to create a project. It defines the necessary required material and their positions.

initializr-docs: It provides documentation for the project.

initializr-generator: The initiliazr-generator contains a core project generation library.

initializr-generator-test: The initializr-generator-test provides a test infrastructure for project generation.

initializr-metadata: The initializr-metadata provides metadata infrastructure for various aspects of the projects.

initializr-service-example: The initializr-service-example provides custom instances.

initializr-version-resolver: The initializr-version-resolver is an optional module to extract version numbers from an arbitrary POM.

initializr-web: The initializr-web provides web endpoints for third party clients.

Getting Started With Spring Initializr

To auto-generate a spring boot project with Spring Initializr visit https://start.spring.io/.

Follow the below steps to generate a project:

Step1: Select the build tool:

select the Maven or Gradle build tool by clicking on it.

Step2: Select Language

Select the programming language from the below list:

Step3: Select Spring Boot version:

Select the SB version from the below list:

Step4: Provide the Project metadata:

Provide the project metadata such as Group, Artifact, etc.

Step5: Select the required dependencies:

Select the required dependencies for the spring boot project. Later we will discuss these dependencies in Spring boot dependencies sections:

Click on the add dependencies list:

It will open a search window and list of dependencies.

Step6: Add the necessary dependencies:

Add the dependencies by selecting from the below list:

Step7: Generate the Project:

Generate the project by clicking on the generate option given at bottom:

Here, your spring boot project structure is ready. Import it in your favorite IDE and start developing the spring boot applications.