Java Annotated Monthly – December 2025

This month brings significant developments throughout the Java ecosystem. Java has begun announcing JEPs targeted for the upcoming release, while Spring has unveiled major updates with Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4.

As always, we've curated the most interesting articles, videos, and podcasts covering Java, Kotlin, Spring, AI, and other relevant topics in technology and software development. 

We're also pleased to feature Siva Katamreddy as our guest author, who has selected valuable content and resources from across the developer community.

There's plenty to explore, so let's dive in.

Featured Content

Siva Katamreddy Siva is a Developer Advocate at JetBrains with more than 19 years of experience in building scalable, distributed enterprise applications. He has strong hands-on experience in building cloud-native applications using the Java platform. A published author, Siva loves to share his knowledge on his blog and YouTube channel.

Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4 went GA in November 2025, delivering features such as API versioning, enhancements to the HTTP service client, resilience features in Core Spring, Jackson 3 support, and more. You can explore these new features in the Road to GA article series.

One of the major changes in Spring Boot 4 is the modularization of the previously single spring-boot-autoconfigure JAR into separate modules, each focused on specific functionality. This ensures that your application includes only the autoconfiguration relevant to the modules you import, reducing the runtime footprint. Similarly, the spring-boot-test-autoconfigure JAR has also been split, allowing you to include only the test starters you actually need.

//Spring Boot 3.x

implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web'

implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa'

implementation 'org.flywaydb:flyway-core'

testImplementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test'

//Spring Boot 4.x

implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-webmvc'

implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa'

implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-flyway'

testImplementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-webmvc-test'

testImplementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa-test'

testImplementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-flyway-test'

Dan Vega, Developer Advocate at Broadcom, has published an excellent video series covering the new features in Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4. I highly recommend watching the following:

• API Versioning Made Simple with Spring Boot 4.0
• Spring Framework 7: Dynamic Bean Registration Made Easy
• Jackson 3 Support is HERE: What's New in Spring Framework 7 & Spring Boot 4
• Spring Boot 4's Built-in Resilience Features: Say Goodbye to External Dependencies!

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3 provides support for these new features, enabling developers to use them seamlessly. For more details, refer to the article: IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3