Research and Innovation

Team members

• Abhinav Srivastava
• Pooja Joshi
• Pulkit Pushkarna
• Smriti Babbar

• Title: Comparison: Quarkus vs. Helidon vs. Spring Boot

• Objective: Evaluate the capabilities, performance, and ease of use of three popular Java frameworks to inform technology decisions for our projects.

• Agenda: Overview of each framework, comparison criteria, preliminary results, and next steps.

Introduction

• Quarkus:
  • Known as "Supersonic Subatomic Java."
  • Optimized for Kubernetes, microservices, 
  • Provides fast startup times and low memory usage.
• Helidon:
  • Designed for microservices, particularly in cloud-native environments.
  • Emphasizes simplicity and portability.
  • Lightweight with a modular architecture.
• Spring Boot:
  • Industry standard for Java applications.
  • Highly versatile and mature with a large ecosystem.
  • Strong support for enterprise and microservices applications.

Overview of the Frameworks

Comparison Criteria

• Performance:

  • Startup time
  • Memory usage
  • Throughput and latency

• Development Experience:

  • Ease of setup
  • Documentation and community support
  • Learning curve for developers transitioning from other frameworks

• Deployment and Compatibility:

  • Kubernetes and cloud-native features
  • Native image support (e.g., GraalVM)
  • Compatibility with existing enterprise systems and libraries

• Maintainability and Flexibility:

  • Extensibility and integration with third-party libraries
  • Community and long-term support

Preliminary Observations

• Quarkus:

  • Very fast in native mode, low memory footprint.
  • Strong Kubernetes integration; suited for containerized environments.
  • Learning curve is moderate.

• Helidon:

  • Lightweight and modular, suitable for simple microservices.
  • Good cloud-native capabilities.
  • Easy to use for small, focused microservices.

• Spring Boot:

  • Comprehensive ecosystem and rich feature set.
  • Higher memory usage and slower startup compared to Quarkus, especially in JVM mode.
  • Excellent support, documentation, and extensive integrations.

Next Steps

• Complete Benchmark Tests: Measure startup time, memory usage, and throughput for each framework under similar conditions.
• Expand PoC with Real-World Scenarios: Implement typical business logic for more accurate comparisons.
• Evaluate Ease of Integration: Test each framework’s compatibility with common libraries and tools (e.g., databases, messaging queues).
• Analyze Long-Term Maintainability: Consider the framework’s community support, roadmap, and documentation quality.

Conclusion

• A summarized table highlighting each framework's strengths and trade-offs.
• Preliminary recommendation for specific use cases.
• Emphasize that final decisions will be based on results from comprehensive benchmarking and further PoC development.