What’s Coming in Spring Framework 6.0? Roadmap, Features, and Release Timeline

SpringOne was held online due to the pandemic, and Pivotal used the event to showcase the next major release, Spring Framework 6.0.

Spring Framework 5.3.x

Spring Framework 5.3.x will continue to be the base for Spring Boot 2.6 and 2.7.

Spring Framework 6.0

Spring Framework 6.0 will be built on Java 17 and Jakarta EE 9.

Spring 6.0 marks the start of the next decade for Spring.

By the end of September the Spring 6.0 development branch will be set.

End‑of‑2021 will see a milestone release.

Mid‑2022 will bring the Release Candidate (RC) version.

The final release date is not fixed, but may follow Spring Boot’s six‑month cadence.

Spring 6.0 will be a major update with many new features.

Developers will be keen on the specific features of the final version.

For learning Spring Boot, a long‑running free tutorial is available at http://blog.didispace.com/spring-boot-learning-2x/.

Spring Framework 6.0 Roadmap

The official roadmap shows the planned timeline for Spring 6 releases.

Key Changes from 5.3 to 6.0

XML configuration may become obsolete.

Several Java EE APIs (EJB, JCA, JAX‑WS) will be deprecated.

RPC support such as HTTP Invoker will be removed.

Migration to Jakarta EE 9+ requires updating imports: jakarta.servlet (Tomcat 10, Jetty 11). jakarta.persistence (Hibernate ORM 6?).

Cloud‑Native Enhancements

Improved support for GraalVM and Project Leyden (a Java static‑graph project).

Spring Boot 3.0

Spring Boot 3 is based on Spring Framework 6 and will fully embrace cloud‑native development.

It is predicted that the official release of Spring Boot 3 will be at the end of Q4 2022.

Java 17 Soon

Java 17 is scheduled for release in two weeks, and its arrival will open a new era for Spring development.