what is new in Spring Boot

Categories: Spring Boot

Here’s a version-wise summary of what’s new in Spring Boot from the major versions 2.x to 3.x, including key features, improvements, and changes.

✅ Spring Boot 2.x Series (2018–2022)

Spring Boot 2.0 (March 2018) - below are new things in Spring boot 2.0

• Spring Framework 5 support
• Reactive programming support via Spring WebFlux
• HTTP/2 support (Tomcat, Jetty, Undertow)
• Actuator redesigned with more flexible endpoints
• Java 8 baseline
• Gradle plugin updated

Spring Boot 2.1 (Oct 2018)- below are new things in Spring boot 2.1

• Java 11 support
• HikariCP made the default connection pool
• Improved startup time and memory footprint
• New Actuator metrics via Micrometer
• Enhanced health indicators

Spring Boot 2.2 (Oct 2019)- below are new things in Spring boot 2.2

• Lazy initialization of beans
• RSocket support
• Improved configuration metadata
• Enhanced support for Kubernetes
• Java 13 support

Spring Boot 2.3 (May 2020) -- below are new things in Spring boot 2.3

• Docker image building with Cloud Native Buildpacks
• Graceful shutdown
• Improved liveness/readiness probes for Kubernetes
• Dependency upgrades (Spring Data Neumann, etc.)

Spring Boot 2.4 (Nov 2020)- below are new things in Spring boot 2.4

• New configuration loading system
• Support for Volume-mounted configs
• Startup probes (Kubernetes)
• Improved support for metrics and observability
• Deprecation of application.yml profiles splitting

Spring Boot 2.5 (May 2021)- below are new things in Spring boot 2.5

• Test slices improvements
• Support for data initialization using SQL scripts
• Docker image name configuration via properties
• Dependency upgrades

Spring Boot 2.6 (Nov 2021)- below are new things in Spring boot 2.6

• Support for Spring Native (early support for GraalVM)
• Configuration property validation enhancements
• Servlet web server graceful shutdown
• Default support for PathPatternParser in Spring MVC

Spring Boot 2.7 (May 2022) – Final 2.x release- below are new things in Spring boot 2.7

• Spring Boot 3 migration support begins
• Deprecated features for Java EE modules
• Support for Spring Security 5.7 features
• Dependency updates for Micrometer, Hibernate, Flyway

Spring Boot 3.x Series (2022–2025)

Spring Boot 3.0 (Nov 2022) – Major Release- below are new things in Spring boot 3.0

• ✅ Java 17 baseline
• ✅ Jakarta EE 9+ migration (package change: javax.* → jakarta.*)
• ✅ Spring Framework 6
• ✅ AOT (Ahead-of-Time) compilation support
• ✅ Native image support with GraalVM
• ✅ Improved observability with Micrometer Tracing
• ❌ Removed support for older Java versions, javax.*

 Spring Boot 3.1 (May 2023)- below are new things in Spring boot 3.1

• ✅ Testcontainers support (auto-config)
• ✅ Improved configuration for profiles, environments
• ✅ Docker Compose support (e.g., auto-start test services)
• ✅ Improvements for observability (Micrometer, Sleuth merged into Micrometer Tracing)
• ✅ New annotations for context lifecycle: @DynamicPropertySource, @ServiceConnection

 Spring Boot 3.2 (Nov 2023)- below are new things in Spring boot 3.2

• ✅ Java 21 support
• ✅ Virtual threads support (Tomcat, Jetty, Undertow)
• ✅ RestClient – new HTTP client abstraction
• ✅ Auto-configuration ordering with @AutoConfigureBefore/After
• ✅ Enhanced test support for AOT applications
• ✅ GraalVM improvements for native images

Spring Boot 3.3 (Expected May 2024)- below are new things in Spring boot 3.3

(Assuming latest info)

• Dependency upgrades – Hibernate 6.4, Spring Security updates
• More REST client enhancements
• Better Docker/OCI container support
• Preview support for Java 22

Summary Table