Summary: What's New in Spring 2025 & HTTP Client Side

  • Spring Framework 6.x and Boot 3.x bring cloud-native, reactive, and modular architectures.
  • WebClient is now the recommended HTTP client for REST APIs, with HTTP/2, connection pooling, and improved error handling.
  • RestTemplate remains for legacy support, but new projects should use WebClient.
  • Declarative HTTP clients, multipart requests, streaming responses, and native support for JSON/XML/Protobuf are now easier.
  • Enhanced security, OAuth2/OpenID Connect integration, and better test utilities for HTTP clients.

These updates make building robust, secure, and scalable Java web applications easier than ever in 2025.

Spring 2025: New Features & HTTP Client Side Support

October 10, 2025
By Visible Campus
9 min read
Spring Update

Spring Framework continues to evolve in 2025! This blog highlights the latest features, especially around HTTP client side support, and how they empower modern Java web development.

🌱 Spring 2025 Overview

  • Spring Framework 6.x and Boot 3.x focus on cloud-native, reactive, and modular architectures.
  • Improved support for GraalVM native images.
  • Enhanced security and observability features.

🔗 HTTP Client Side Support

  • WebClient: The preferred non-blocking, reactive HTTP client for REST APIs.
  • RestTemplate: Still supported for legacy apps, but WebClient is recommended for new projects.
  • New features: HTTP/2 support, connection pooling, better error handling, and improved integration with OAuth2/OpenID.

🆕 New Features & APIs

  • Declarative HTTP clients (like Feign) with Spring Cloud integration.
  • Improved support for multipart requests and streaming responses.
  • Enhanced test utilities for HTTP clients.
  • Native support for JSON, XML, and Protocol Buffers.

✅ Best Practices

  • Prefer WebClient for new development.
  • Use connection pooling and timeouts for robust HTTP calls.
  • Handle errors gracefully and log responses.
  • Secure API calls with OAuth2/OpenID Connect.

💡 Code Examples

// WebClient example WebClient webClient = WebClient.create(); String result = webClient.get() .uri("https://api.example.com/data") .retrieve() .bodyToMono(String.class) .block(); // RestTemplate example RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate(); String response = restTemplate.getForObject("https://api.example.com/data", String.class);

📚 Resources

  • Spring Official Docs
  • Spring Boot Guides
  • Visible Campus Courses & Webinars
  • GitHub, Stack Overflow, Community Forums
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