Performance Comparison of Spring Boot on JVM vs GraalVM Native Image

Spring Boot simplifies the creation of production‑ready Java applications by providing embedded servers, starter dependencies, and auto‑configuration, eliminating the need for extensive XML or code generation.

GraalVM can ahead‑of‑time compile Java applications into compact native executables that start up to 100× faster than JVM‑based versions and use significantly less memory and CPU.

The article compares a basic Spring Boot "Hello World" service running on a JVM and as a GraalVM native image. Tests were performed on a MacBook M1 with 16 GB RAM using JDK 21, GraalVM JDK 21, and Spring Boot 3.1.4.

The application source code is:

package com.example.demo;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@SpringBootApplication
@RestController
public class DemoApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
    }

    @GetMapping("/")
    public String handleRequest() {
        return "Hello World!";
    }
}

The Maven build configuration (pom.xml) includes the Spring Boot starter, test dependencies, the Spring Boot Maven plugin, and the GraalVM native‑image plugin:

<project ...>
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>3.1.4</version>
  </parent>
  <properties>
    <java.version>21</java.version>
  </properties>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <configuration>
          <mainClass>com.example.demo.DemoApplication</mainClass>
          <layout>JAR</layout>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.graalvm.buildtools</groupId>
        <artifactId>native-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>0.9.27</version>
        <extensions>true</extensions>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>build-native</id>
            <goals><goal>compile-no-fork</goal></goals>
            <phase>package</phase>
          </execution>
          <execution>
            <id>test-native</id>
            <goals><goal>test</goal></goals>
            <phase>test</phase>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

The resulting native binary is approximately 76 MB in size.

Performance tests were executed with 500 000 requests at concurrency levels of 50, 100, and 300 using the Bombardier tool. Results (shown in the original images) indicate that the native image does not provide a clear advantage in request‑throughput over the JVM version for this simple workload.

A scoring system was applied: improvements under 5 % receive no points, 5‑20 % gain 1 point, 20‑50 % gain 2 points, and over 50 % gain 3 points. The final score table (also shown as an image) reflects that GraalVM’s main benefit lies in its reduced memory footprint rather than raw request‑handling speed.

Conclusion: For a trivial "Hello World" service, GraalVM’s native compilation does not significantly outperform the JVM in latency or throughput, but it does achieve markedly lower memory usage, making it a good choice when startup time and memory efficiency are critical.

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