All together now: Spring Boot 3.2, GraalVM native images, Java 21, and virtual threads with Project Loom,
This has been a very long time in coming, but finally we can create GraalVM native images that use Spring Boot (via Spring Boot 3.2) and Java 21's virtual threads (Project Loom)!
Why does all this matter? Each of these individual things, Project Loom, and GraalVM native images, offer compelling runtime characteristics. I've waited so very long for these to converge! Let's talk about them each in turn.
GraalVM Native Images
GraalVM is an OpenJDk distribution that provides some extra utilities, including a utility called native-image
that does ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation on your code. We're…