What is the most commonly used Java web framework?

Question

Which of the following frameworks is the most commonly used in Java right now and, if different, which framework is growing in popularity the fastest in terms of adoption?

1. Stripes
2. Spring MVC
3. Struts
4. Struts 2
5. Tapestry
6. Wicket
7. JSF
8. No Framework - Pure JSP/Servlet
9. Grails
10. Some other framework not mentioned here

Answer 1

Spring:

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java+struts%2C+java+spring%2C+java+stripes&l=&relative=1

Answer 2

I think struts is the most commonly used one. It has been around for a long time and has a very good developer community behind it.

Spring is also gaining a lot of momentum because of its POJO style programming through Dependency Injection.

Answer 3

I think you need to make your question a bit clearer. By popular, so you mean "is most likely to be used in a project starting today" or "is used in the greatest number of projects"?

I have absolutely no data to support this, but based on experience, hearsay and conjecture, I suspect that (of the frameworks you've listed) the relative popularity is:

1. Struts
2. Spring MVC
3. Stripes

I'm not sure how you came up with this list, but there are several other popular frameworks that you've omitted, such as:

• Tapestry
• Wicket
• JSF

Grails is a framweork which seems to be growing very quickly in popularity, though it's debatable whether it's a Java web framework.

Answer 4

Struts 1.x is the most commonly used Web Framework, there's no doubt about it as Faisal mentioned. Too many lines of code written with it. Most companies are trying to upgrade to Struts 2.x to avoid complete rewrites.

For new or not so old projects, you might see something like Seam, Spring, JSF, Wicket, GWT are probably popular. I am not mentionning all the other existing frameworks such as Stripes as there's not tons of documentation for it yet.

Answer 5

Spring MVC is a good way to go if you already have a Spring Java App. But you might also look into Apache Wicket which seems to be kind of a "rising star". Both are wide spread ( Spring MVC is and Wicket seems to be soon ) so that learning one of the might help you in future.

Using Spring MVC requires some Spring knowledge. So if you start from zero you might be faster with Wicket.

Answer 6

To me it goes like,

• Stripes, makes perfect sense for a small-to-medium web application. You might get a hard time to get help, though.
• Spring MVC and Webflow, is the most suitable if you are already using Spring IoC, IMO. Otherwise, I don't see how it fits without.
• Struts, makes sense to an existing application already implemented using Struts.
• Struts 2, makes sense to upgrade existing Struts application
• Tapestry, I have seen every new project consider it, and then decide to go with something else.
• Wicket, great framework. lots of folks adopted it to build new apps.
• JSF, great job market, plenty of books, lots of support. But Seam gave a compelling reason to adopt it. Otherwise, few developers need to fold their mind to digest it.
• Seam, great framework, especially if you already decided to go with JSF as a web framework. Lots of folks doing Seam these days.
• No Framework - Pure JSP/Servlet, there are some hardliners who still argue why need a framework, when simple Servlet/JSP and Filters can do that. One of them is Bear Bibeault author of JQuery in Action.
• Grails, not a Java web framework. Groovy is not Java, yes it runs on JVM but thats also true with Scala and Jython and few other scripting languages.

Answer 7

As far as Job postings are concern, the ranking goes like this, top to bottom, AFAICS.

• JSF
• Spring, Spring MVC, Spring Webflow
• Struts 2
• Struts
• Wicket

Others I am not sure.

Answer 8

Agree that Struts is the most commonly used but not necessarily the most popular now.