Why Choose Quarkus in 2025? A Practical Guide for Java Developers

Quarkus has been gaining traction among Java developers aiming to build modern, cloud-native applications. But beyond the buzzwords, is it worth adopting in your 2025 stack? This article takes a practical look at Quarkus, focusing on real-world benefits and trade-offs for developers and teams.

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1. Fast Boot Time and Low Memory Use – For Real?

If you’re deploying to Kubernetes or a serverless platform, startup time matters. Quarkus is designed to boot in milliseconds and run with a smaller memory footprint compared to traditional Java frameworks.

When it helps:

• Cold starts in AWS Lambda / Knative
• CI/CD pipelines where apps are restarted frequently
• Resource-constrained environments (e.g. Raspberry Pi clusters)

Try it: Use the Quarkus dev mode (./mvnw quarkus:dev) and compare startup logs and memory stats with Spring Boot using jcmd or Docker stats.

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2. Developer Productivity – Is It Actually Better?

Quarkus offers live reload, hot deployment, and streamlined configuration.

./mvnw quarkus:dev

Feels like frontend dev: Any change in your code or config is immediately reflected.

Practical integrations:

• Built-in testing with JUnit
• Dev Services to auto-start databases like Postgres or Kafka
• Zero-config REST endpoints

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3. Container and Cloud Native – Not Just a Buzzword

Quarkus is natively optimized for containers and GraalVM. That’s not just marketing — it translates to real-world deployment wins.

GraalVM Native Images:

• Compile your app into a native executable
• Boot in <100ms and use <100MB RAM
• Ideal for scale-to-zero or short-lived jobs

🛠 Downsides:

• Native image build is slower (~2–5 minutes)
• Limited runtime reflection (workarounds with @RegisterForReflection)

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4. Real Ecosystem Support (with Caveats)

Quarkus now supports:

• Hibernate ORM and Panache
• RESTEasy Reactive
• Kafka, AMQP, MongoDB
• OpenTelemetry, Keycloak, MicroProfile, OpenAPI

But watch out:

• Some extensions are community-only or less mature
• Stack Overflow is smaller compared to Spring Boot

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5. Use Cases Where Quarkus Makes Sense

✅ Good Fit:

• Microservices and serverless
• Cloud-native greenfield projects
• Event-driven apps (Kafka, MQTT, etc.)
• Developer teams already using Maven or Gradle

❌ Less Ideal:

• Large legacy Spring apps
• Teams not ready for native compilation pipelines
• Heavy use of reflection or dynamic class loading

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6. What Does a Quarkus App Look Like?

Here’s a minimal REST app:

@Path("/hello")
public class HelloResource {

    @GET
    public String hello() {
        return "Hello from Quarkus!";
    }
}

curl http://localhost:8080/hello

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7. Trade-offs to Consider

Concern	Quarkus	Spring Boot
Startup Time	✅ Faster	❌ Slower
Memory Usage	✅ Lower	❌ Higher
Ecosystem Maturity	⚠️ Growing	✅ Very mature
Native Compilation	✅ Built-in	⚠️ Available via GraalVM
Dev Experience	✅ Live reload, CLI	⚠️ Spring Dev Tools

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8. Final Thoughts

Quarkus is not a silver bullet. But in 2025, if your goal is to build modern, fast, container-native Java apps, Quarkus gives you a compelling, efficient, and enjoyable developer experience — as long as your project fits its strengths.

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Want to Try It?

mvn io.quarkus:quarkus-maven-plugin:create \
    -DprojectGroupId=org.acme \
    -DprojectArtifactId=my-app \
    -DclassName="org.acme.GreetingResource" \
    -Dpath="/hello"

Also, this page will help you bootstrap your Quarkus application and discover its extension ecosystem: https://code.quarkus.io/

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💬 Feel free to share your experience with Quarkus or ask questions in the comments.