Build Ultra‑Fast Spring Native Apps with GraalVM and UPX

Basic Environment

GraalVM is a high‑performance virtual machine that can significantly improve program performance and is well‑suited for microservices.

Download links (same as a regular JDK installation):

Linux (amd64) – link [1]

Linux (aarch64) – link [2]

MacOS (amd64) – link [3]

Windows (amd64) – link [4]

If you are using macOS Catalina or later, run the following command before installation to avoid a quarantine warning:

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine path/to/graalvm/folder/

Getting Started with Spring Native

Create a project from https://start.spring.io [5].

Add a Maven profile for native‑image builds:

<profiles>
  <profile>
    <id>native-image</id>
    <build>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.graalvm.nativeimage</groupId>
          <artifactId>native-image-maven-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>21.0.0</version>
          <configuration>
            <!-- Specify the entry point of the Main class -->
            <mainClass>com.example.demo.DemoApplication</mainClass>
          </configuration>
          <executions>
            <execution>
              <goals>
                <goal>native-image</goal>
              </goals>
              <phase>package</phase>
            </execution>
          </executions>
        </plugin>
      </plugins>
    </build>
  </profile>
</profiles>

Configure the existing spring-boot-maven-plugin to produce an executable JAR:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <configuration>
    <!-- Use classifier "exec" -->
    <classifier>exec</classifier>
    <image>
      <builder>paketobuildpacks/builder:tiny</builder>
      <env>
        <BP_NATIVE_IMAGE>true</BP_NATIVE_IMAGE>
      </env>
    </image>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

Start Building

Run the Maven command: mvn -Pnative-image package Build succeeds in about three minutes.

[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 03:03 min
[INFO] Finished at: 2021-03-28T12:17:55+08:00
[INFO] Final Memory: 113M/310M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

ls -lh target/com.example.demo.demoapplication
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 57M Mar 28 12:17 target/com.example.demo.demoapplication

Run the native binary to test:

target/com.example.demo.demoapplication

Compress Further with UPX

UPX (Ultimate Packer for Executables) is an open‑source tool that compresses executable files.

Install UPX and compress the native image:

brew install upx
upx com.example.demo.demoapplication

The binary size is reduced to about 30% while remaining runnable.

Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
Copyright (C) 1996 - 2020
UPX 3.96    Markus Oberhumer, Laszlo Molnar & John Reiser   Jan 23rd 2020

File size          Ratio  Format   Name
------------------- ------ -------- ------------------------------
60185112 -> 18501648 30.74% macho/amd64 com.example.demo.demoapplication

Packed 1 file.

ls -lh target/com.example.demo.demoapplication
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 18M Mar 28 12:17 target/com.example.demo.demoapplication

References

[1] https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-builds/releases/download/vm-21.0.0.2/graalvm-ce-java11-linux-amd64-21.0.0.2.tar.gz

[2] https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-builds/releases/download/vm-21.0.0.2/graalvm-ce-java11-linux-aarch64-21.0.0.2.tar.gz

[3] https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-builds/releases/download/vm-21.0.0.2/graalvm-ce-java11-darwin-amd64-21.0.0.2.tar.gz

[4] https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-builds/releases/download/vm-21.0.0.2/graalvm-ce-java11-windows-amd64-21.0.0.2.zip

[5] https://start.spring.io