Spring-boot vs Java
When comparing Spring-boot vs Java, the Slant community recommends Spring-boot for most people. In the question“What are the best backend web frameworks?” Spring-boot is ranked 8th while Java is ranked 41st. The most important reason people chose Spring-boot is:
Boot is just a thin configuration layer over Spring Framework, as such it inherits all the strengths of Spring.
Specs
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Pros

Pro Inherits all of Spring's strengths
Boot is just a thin configuration layer over Spring Framework, as such it inherits all the strengths of Spring.

Pro Preconfigured starters

Pro Fast prototyping
Spring boot is built for fast prototyping.

Pro Kick down to Spring
Pro Verbosity
It makes it easy to debug and to read code.
Pro Mature ecosystem
The language and all its tools have enough time to age and they've aged well.
Pro Type-safe
It is easier to catch errors sooner.
Cons
Con Lacking in UI development
While actually very good and with a very complete and rich feature set to develop and maintain code on the server side, it still doesn't provide any rich framework for building good user interfaces.
Con Memory hungry
Running the virtual machine, application server and application itself consumes significant amount of resources.
Con Unnecessarily obtuse and verbose
If you like typing 40 lines of code to open a file, Java is the language for you. If, on the other hand, you’d actually like to get something done, look elsewhere.
Con Oracle
Enough said.
In more detail: Oracle has acquired Java from Sun and continues to surround it with controversy ever since (legendary lawsuit with google, money extortion from the enterprise users etc.).
