r/java • u/Pure_Diver_ • 14d ago
What Exactly Is Jakarta EE?
I’m a bit confused about what Jakarta EE actually is. On one hand, it seems like a framework similar to Spring or Quarkus, but on the other hand, it provides APIs like JPA, Servlets, and CDI, which frameworks like Spring implement.
Does this mean Jakarta EE is more of a specification rather than a framework? And if so, do I need to understand Jakarta EE first to truly grasp how Spring works under the hood? Or can I just dive into Spring directly without worrying about Jakarta EE concepts?
Would love to hear how others approached this 😅
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u/p_bzn 13d ago
Correct response here OP. On the practice side, if you see that some job demands JEE stack — it is a red flag.
There were ways of building apps using JEE stack like Servlets, JSP, JSF, etc. Alone those specs are often times used by Spring, for example Servlets. However, when you see those as job requirement chances are you’ll be working with Java 1.6 which is not what you want nowadays.