Spring Framework 6.0 Released: What’s New for Java 17+ and Jakarta EE 10

Spring Framework 6.0.0 is now officially released.

“This marks the start of the next‑generation framework for 2023 and beyond, embracing OpenJDK and the current and upcoming innovations in the Java ecosystem. It is designed as a direct upgrade from Spring Framework 5.3.x for modern runtime environments.”

As a major revision of the core framework, Spring Framework 6.0 brings a Java 17+ baseline and migration to the jakarta namespace, focusing on the recently released Jakarta EE 10 APIs such as Servlet 6.0 and JPA 3.1. This enables access to the latest web containers (e.g., Tomcat 10.1) and persistence providers (e.g., Hibernate ORM 6.1). The announcement advises moving from Java EE 8 to the Jakarta EE 10 level.

On the infrastructure side, 6.0 introduces the foundation for Ahead‑Of‑Time (AOT) transformation and corresponding AOT processing support for the Spring application context, providing first‑class support for GraalVM native images in Spring Boot 3. You can also explore Project Loom’s virtual threads (see “Embracing Virtual Threads”) and investigate Project CRaC’s checkpoint‑restore method to speed up JVM startup; both features are currently in preview.

Additional features and improvements include an HTTP interface client, support for RFC 7807 problem details, and Micrometer‑based observability for the HTTP client.

For a complete overview of the new features, see the “What’s New in Spring Framework 6.x” page on GitHub.

Download source code (zip or tar.gz) from the official GitHub repository.

Related link: Spring blog post announcing the GA release.