Spring Sandals is an alternative approach to frameworks like Ktor and Vert.x
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sandals Spring Sandals

A lightweight approach to building applications with the Spring Framework

Overview

Spring Sandals is a developer's guide for building lightweight applications using the Spring Framework. Our hope is that you use the parts of Spring Sandals that you find useful to build fast, robust applications with the Spring Framework.

We’ve seen many teams move away from Java and Spring in search of lighter-weight languages and frameworks, only to realize there’s no silver bullet. In response, we maintain a collection of examples of how Spring developers can achieve the advantages of a light-weight framework while taking advantage Spring’s strengths.

The move away from Spring often feels AI-driven, led by Python and libraries like Flask, BeautifulSoup, and LangChain. Developers then attempt to replicate aspects of classic Java stacks in their new stack, only to find that building component-based architectures can be a real challenge in some languages and frameworks. To support this transition to AI, we’ve created the AI Discovery Agent project—built on top of the embedded-server template—to demonstrate how Spring continues to shine.

Features

The example development toolchain is well-suited for startups and enterprise teams. It’s built on modern, reliable technologies and designed to support fast, efficient development without unnecessary complexity.

Best of all, the toolchain runs lightning fast, whether you're developing locally or deploying to major cloud platforms.

Architecture matters

Great applications are built by developers, for developers. Our example codebases are filled with hard-earned insights and thoughtful design decisions, shaped by decades of experience; from single-purpose internal web apps to large-scale distributed systems supporting thousands of concurrent users. We hope you find these insights both refreshing and thought-provoking, and that they help you to continue to build great Spring applications. Check out our GitHub repository

Get support

As you explore ways to modernize your Spring applications or to help your team build their Spring expertise, we're always open to collaborating. We've worked with teams at every stage of this journey and are happy to share what we've learned. Feel free to reach out if a conversation would be helpful.