Difference between Spring Boot Starter Parent and Spring Boot Starter Web

When developing Spring Boot applications, two commonly used dependencies are spring-boot-starter-parent and spring-boot-starter-web. Both play crucial roles in the project setup, but their purposes are entirely different. Understanding the difference between these two will help developers configure their projects more efficiently.

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What is Spring Boot Starter Parent?

Spring Boot Starter Parent is a special type of Maven parent project that provides:

• Default configurations
• Dependency version management
• Plugin configurations
• Common properties

It acts as the parent POM for your Spring Boot project.

Key Features:

1. Dependency Management: Automatically manages versions of common Spring Boot dependencies.
2. Plugin Management: Configures commonly used Maven plugins like maven-compiler-plugin, spring-boot-maven-plugin, and maven-surefire-plugin.
3. Default Properties: Provides default values for properties like UTF-8 encoding and Java version.
4. Inheritance Support: Your project inherits all configurations when you declare this parent in your pom.xml.

How to Use It:

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>3.2.1</version>
</parent>

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What is Spring Boot Starter Web?

Spring Boot Starter Web is a dependency that helps you create REST APIs and web applications in Spring Boot.

It automatically pulls all necessary dependencies to build web applications, such as:

• Spring MVC
• Embedded Tomcat server
• Jackson (JSON data binding)
• Validation API

Key Features:

1. Spring MVC Integration: Automatically configures Spring MVC for web applications.
2. Embedded Server: Provides an embedded Tomcat server to run the application without external servers.
3. Jackson Library: Converts Java objects into JSON format automatically.
4. Validation Support: Supports @Valid and @Validated for request validations.

How to Use It:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>

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Major Differences between Spring Boot Starter Parent and Spring Boot Starter Web

Feature	Spring Boot Starter Parent	Spring Boot Starter Web
Purpose	Provides common configurations and dependency management	Helps to create web applications and REST APIs
Type	Parent POM	Starter dependency
Dependency Management	Yes	No
Embedded Server	No	Yes (Tomcat)
Plugin Management	Yes	No
REST API Support	No	Yes
Required in Every Project	Optional	Only for web-based projects

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How They Work Together?

If you’re building a web application in Spring Boot, you’ll typically use both dependencies together.

Example pom.xml:

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>3.2.1</version>
</parent>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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Conclusion

In simple terms:

• spring-boot-starter-parent is like a foundation that sets up project configurations and manages dependency versions.
• spring-boot-starter-web is like a toolbox that provides everything you need to build web applications.

Both work together to simplify the Spring Boot development process. Understanding their roles helps you write cleaner and more maintainable code.