Is 'Spring in Action' good learn Spring?

Yes, 'Spring in Action' is one of the comprehensive books for beginners to learn Spring from scratch.

Spring is an open-source framework for developing Java applications. With this framework, you can create enterprise-grade Java applications.

Can I learn Spring from books?

Yes, you can learn Spring from books as they provide you with knowledge of Spring concepts in-depth.

Why should you learn Spring?

As Spring is a popular Java framework, it helps developers build Java applications quickly and easily. If you aim to become a server-side Java developer, it is essential to learn Spring, along with Hibernate.

10 Best Spring Books for Java Developers in 2024

Spring is one of the extensively used frameworks for developing Java applications. In addition, it is an open-source Java platform released in 2003. This framework helps developers create easily testable, reliable, high-performing, and reusable Java code.

If you're new to the Spring framework and want to learn more, books are a great place to start. The Spring framework consists of multiple modules, namely Spring core container, aspect-oriented programming (AOP), data access and integration, web and remoting, instrumentation, and test.

Here's more information about these components of the Spring framework:

Spring core container consists of four sub-modules: Core, Bean, Context, and Expression language.
The data access and integration module contain Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), Object-relational Mapping (ORM), Object XML Mappers (OXM), Java Message Service (JMS), and transactions.
Web and remoting consist of Web, Web-Socket, Web-Portlet, Web-Servlet, Web, and Web-Struts.
The AOP module allows aspect-oriented programming implementation in Spring applications. AOP involves breaking the entire code into small units or modules and is known as modularization.
The Spring test module uses TestNG or JUnit frameworks to test spring components.
Instrumentation provides class instrument support.

If you are a Java programmer and want to develop expertise in the Spring framework, this post is for you.

Here, you will get familiar with the best Spring books that can help you learn and master Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Spring Security, and Core Spring. So, let us begin!

10 Best Spring Books to Learn Spring

Below are our top 10 handpicked Spring books intended for beginners, intermediate-level professionals, and advanced learners.

1. Spring in Action

Author: Craig Walls

Spring in Action is an excellent book to learn the Spring framework. This book highlights the Spring MVC framework’s cutting-edge features and effective practices. It also describes various aspects of the Spring 3.0 framework, including messaging, REST, Web Flow, Security, and many others.

The author has specially designed this Spring book to help you understand the features of Spring 4. You will come across several examples and short snippets while reading and gaining the skills required to develop web applications and RESTful web services.

Moreover, the author has divided the entire book into four sections. These sections are namely:

Core Spring,
Spring on the Web,
Spring in the Backend, and
Integration Spring.

The first section explains everything about writing beans, advanced wiring springing into action, and aspect-oriented Spring.

Next, the second section introduces you to various approaches for building Spring web applications, securing web applications, and rendering web views.

In the third section, you will explore the working of NoSQL databases , caching data, data security methods, and using a database with JDBC and Spring.

Finally, the last section will help you learn about messaging in Spring, working with remote services, sending emails with Spring, etc.

This book is available only in the Paperback format.

About the Author

Craig Walls is an engineer at VMware. Also, he is a member of the Spring engineering team, an author, and a frequent conference speaker.

Publisher: Manning Publications
Paperback Print Length: 624 pages

You can buy this book from here .

2. Spring Data: Modern Data Access for Enterprise Java

Author: Michael Hunger, Mark Pollack, Jon Brisbin, Thomas Risberg, and Oliver Gierke

This book is a perfect tutorial for learning the Spring framework for data science. It primarily concentrates on discussing the method for integrating Spring with Apache Hadoop.

In addition, this book serves to be a simple yet effective tutorial for you to learn how to develop robust web applications across different data technologies, like Hadoop and NoSQL, using Spring Data.

The authors have added hundreds of sample projects in this book, helping you to get familiar with the process of building Hadoop applications.

Spring Data will help you to:

Learn advanced query functionality and repository abstraction of Spring data.
Explore the GemFire distributed data grid solution.
Learn Spring Batch and Spring Integration to build big data pipelines.
Use a lightweight object-mapping framework for building HBase applications.
Get familiar with the utilization of database-specific functionality by using Spring’s template header classes.
Utilize Spring data with various technologies, like MongoDB, HBase, Redis, and Neo4j.

You can buy this book in Kindle and Paperback editions.

About the Author Michael Hunger is a passionate software developer. He works with Neo Technology on the Neo4j graph database. Mark Pollack has been a core Spring (Java) developer since 2003. Also, he is the founder of the Microsoft counterpart, Spring.NET.

Jon Brisbin is a member of the SpringSource Spring Data team. He primarily focuses on developing libraries for developers to facilitate their development work.

Thomas Risberg is one of the members of the Spring Data team that focuses on MongoDB and JDBC Extensions projects.

Oliver Gierke is an engineer at SpringSource, a division of VMware. Also, he is the project lead of the Spring Data JPA, MongoDB, and core module.

Publisher: O’Reilly Media
Paperback print Length: 467 pages

You can buy this book from here .

3. Pro Spring

Author: Rob Harrop

Pro Spring is a comprehensive guide for learning Spring. It incorporates all Spring concepts, ranging from the fundamentals to the advanced-level topics. In addition, this book explains intricate concepts in detail, whereas easy concepts are in brief. It will guide you on why and where you need to use a specific feature of the Spring framework while developing web applications.

Through this book, the author will help you become familiar with the process of developing an application using the Spring MVC framework. Also, this book talks about various facets of aspect-oriented programming. You can buy this book only in the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Rob Harrop is a software consultant and an experienced architect. Additionally, he has built numerous applications using .NET and Java platforms. Also, he is the core developer of the Spring framework. He is the co-founder of Cake Solutions, a UK-based software company.

Publisher: Apress
Paperback print Length: 832 pages

You can buy this book from here .

4. Cloud-native Java: Spring boot, Spring cloud

Author: Kenny Bastani and Josh Long

This is one of the best Spring books for advanced-level programmers. It will help you learn different techniques to simplify web applications using Spring Cloud and Spring Boot. In addition, you can take advantage of stated examples to comprehend concepts easily and quickly.

The authors have penned the fundamentals of the Spring Boot microframework along with the essentials for building cutting-edge and cloud-ready applications. You get multiple resources in the book to learn more about Spring Cloud and other important concepts of the Spring framework.

This book is available in Paperback and Kindle formats.

About the Author

Kenny Bastani is an advocate developer and the editor on the Java queue for InfoQ.com. In addition, he is the lead author of numerous books. He is also a frequent conference speaker.

Josh Long is a Spring Developer Advocate at Pivotal. He is also a frequent speaker at international conferences.

Publisher: O’Reilly
Paperback print Length: 628 pages

You can buy this book from here .

5. Mastering Spring 5.0

Author: Ranga Rao Kanaram

Mastering Spring 5.0 is yet another great book for learning the Spring MVC Framework for building responsive and robust web applications. This book can help you build cloud-native applications using Spring Cloud, Spring Boot, and Spring Cloud Data Flow.

Initially, the author illustrated the functionalities and features of Spring 5.0. In the later parts of the book, you will learn to develop and extend microservices using Spring Boot and use Spring Cloud to build interactive Cloud-Native microservices. Also, you will understand progressive level Spring concepts through examples.

This Spring book will also introduce you to the JVM ( Java Virtual Machine ) and help you learn how to build the Kotlin project in Eclipse. After reading this book, you can develop the skills required to build a microservice using Spring Framework.

You can purchase this book in Kindle and Paperback formats.

About the Author

Ranga Rao Kanaram is an architect, programmer, and trainer. Also, he specializes in various streams, such as microservices, DevOps, TDD, Cloud Native applications, and BDD.

Publisher: Packt Publishing
Paperback print Length: 498 pages

You can buy this book from here .

6. Spring MVC: A Tutorial

Author: Pual Deck

This Spring book is a perfect guide for individuals possessing a solid knowledge of web programming, Java Server Pages, Java, and a little understanding of Spring. The author has illustrated Spring concepts clearly and concisely. Spring MVC: A Tutorial begins immediately with sample code and examples. Therefore, you must know about installing, configuring, and setting up a desktop environment for the Spring framework.

Initially, the author introduced the fundamentals of servlets, and later, he explained the Spring API. He has used simple and friendly language to describe all concepts. Further, this book introduces you to other concepts of Spring, such as expression language, form tags, validators, converters, and many others.

This book is available in Paperback and Kindle editions.

About the Author

Pual Deck is a seasoned programmer. He used the Spring framework for several years to develop robust web applications.

Publisher: Brainysoftware.com
Paperback print Length: 320 pages

You can buy this book from here .

7. Spring Integration in Action

Author: Mark Fisher, Iwein Fuld, Marius Bogoevici, and Jonas Partner

This book is one of the best books for learning Spring, and it is ideal for intermediate and advanced learners. It is an ideal resource for those who want to learn enterprise messaging and integration using the Spring framework.

There are four sections in this book, namely Background, Message, Integration Systems, and Advanced Topics. The Background section discusses the fundamentals of enterprise integration and Spring Integration.

Further, this book will make you familiar with topics like messages and channels, splitting and aggregating messages, message endpoints, and routing and filtering.

The third section will introduce you to file system integration, email-based integration, chatting and tweeting, web services, and the Java message service.

Finally, the advanced section covers complex topics, such as batch applications in enterprise integration, scaling messaging applications, and monitoring, managing, and testing applications.

Spring Integration in Action is available in Paperback and Kindle editions.

About the Author

Mark Fisher is the founder of the Spring Integration project. Currently, he leads the development of Spring Integration. Iwein Fuld is a consultant at Xebia. In addition, he has been a committer on the Spring Integration project since 2008.

Marius Bogoevici is a senior software engineer at Red Hat. Also, he leads Spring Integration at Boss. Jonas Partner is the CEO of the London-based consultancy, OpenCredo.

Publisher: Manning Publications
Paperback print Length: 368 pages

You can buy this book from here .

8. Getting Started With Spring Framework

Author: Ashish Sarin and J Sharma

Getting started with Spring Framework: covers Spring 5

This is among the most promising Spring books that can help learn the skills required for developing Java applications by using the Spring framework. Also, the Spring book helps you to put your knowledge into practice rather than just gaining theoretical knowledge.

The authors have included 88 sample projects in this book, thus assisting you to implement various concepts of Spring. All the examples mentioned within the book are based on Java 9 and Spring 5.0.1.

This book also covers the following topics:

Spring Data JPA.
Aspect-oriented programming.
Spring Web MVC.
Stream API.
Spring Data MongoDB.
Spring WebFlux.
Database interaction with Spring and hibernate/JPA.
Messaging, caching, and emailing support.
Using Spring Web MVC to build RESTful web services .
Lambdas and method references for functional programming.

This book is available in Kindle and Paperback formats.

About the Author

J Sharma has substantial experience in developing applications with Spring. In addition, he is a freelance Java developer.

Ashish Sarin possesses 18 years of experience in architecting applications and is a Sun Certified Enterprise Architect.

Publisher:
Paperback print Length: 535 pages

You can buy this book from here .

9. Spring 5 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

Author: Josh Long, Daniel Rubio, and Marten Deinum

As its name suggests, this book follows a problem-solution approach. The author has mentioned various solutions or techniques for solving issues occurring while developing web applications with the Spring framework.

The authors have initially discussed the fundamentals of Spring, such as Spring AOP / AspectJ and Spring IoC container. In addition, they have also explained Spring Integration, Java EE Integration, Spring Batch, messaging, transactions, and Spring Remoting.

This book also covers Spring web recipes that include REST/web services, Spring MVC, dynamic scripting, and Grails Framework Integration. Finally, you can also learn recipes for new concepts, such as Spring 5 microservices, Spring Framework 5, reactive Spring, functional web framework, and so on.

You can read this book in Kindle and Paperback formats.

About the Author

Gary Mak is the chief consultant and founder of Meta-Archit Software Technology Limited. Marten Deinum is a Java/software consultant at Conspect. In addition, he is a submitter on an open-source Spring Framework project.

Daniel Rubio is a consultant having more than ten years of experience in developing web-based and enterprise software.

Publisher: Apress
Paperback print Length: 831 pages

You can buy this book from here .

10. Spring 5 Design Patterns

Author: Dinesh Rajput

Spring 5 Design Patterns is a popular Spring book that mentions different design patterns with examples to help you learn the best practices for designing and developing web applications.

The author has briefly explained Spring Framework 5.0 and various design patterns. Also, you will learn about the Spring’s Dependency Injection pattern, the use of the GoF pattern in Application Design, and Proxy patterns in Aspect-oriented programming.

This book will also guide you to:

Configure Spring using Java, annotations, and XML.
Implement cache for enhancing an application’s performance.
Learn various effective practices for designing enterprise applications.

Furthermore, this Spring book covers JDBC template patterns and their applications, MVC patterns for developing Reactive web applications, and Concurrency and Reactive streams.

You can purchase this book in Kindle and Paperback formats.

About the Author

Dinesh Rajput is the chief editor of Dineshhonjava’s website. This website primarily includes content related to Spring and Java. In addition, the author is also a Pivotal Certified Spring Professional.

Publisher: Packt Publishing
Paperback print Length: 398 pages

You can buy this book from here .

Conclusion

That concludes our take on the best Spring books. Learning the Spring framework will help you build Java programs and applications quickly, easily, and safely. It is one of the most famous Java web frameworks. The Spring books that we have mentioned above are among the best resources for learning the Spring framework.

If you have a solid understanding of the Java programming language, learning Spring Framework becomes an easy task. Though there are multiple books available today for learning the Spring framework, you need to choose a book that seems to offer the best learning experience as per your requirements.

Also, if you know other best and most popular Spring books, let us know via comments.

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10 Best Spring Books for Java Developers in 2024