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anand jaisy
anand jaisy

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Micronaut vs Quarkus: Why I Switched After Two Years

#java #micronaut #quarkus

Micronaut is a modern, JVM-based, full-stack framework designed for building modular, highly testable microservices and serverless applications. After working with Micronaut for over two years, I decided to transition to Quarkus.

Both frameworks are well regarded in the microservices ecosystem, but after hands-on experience with each, I found Quarkus to offer several practical advantages that better align with my development workflow.

Common Ground

Both Micronaut and Quarkus provide excellent CLI support and can be easily installed using SDKMAN:

sdk install quarkus
sdk install micronaut
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Both frameworks emphasize fast startup times, low memory usage, and cloud-native microservice design.

Why Switch to Quarkus?

1. Developer Mode (Dev Mode)

Quarkus Dev Mode is one of its most powerful features. You can start the application in development mode using a single command:

quarkus dev
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In this mode, any change made anywhere in the codebase is automatically detected and hot-reloaded, providing near-instant feedback.

Micronaut offers a similar capability using Gradle:

./gradlew run --continuous
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or

./gradlew run --t
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2. Testcontainers Auto-Configuration

Quarkus provides seamless Testcontainers integration out of the box. When a project is created, test resources are automatically configured—no additional setup is required.

In Micronaut, Testcontainers support must be explicitly enabled by adding a plugin dependency:

id("io.micronaut.test-resources") version "4.6.1"
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This additional configuration introduces extra overhead, especially during initial project setup.

3. No Lombok Required for Entities

Quarkus significantly reduces boilerplate code by allowing public fields in entities and providing powerful ORM tooling via Panache.

For example, with Quarkus:

@Entity
public class Billing extends Audit{
    public UUID jobId;
    public UUID subscriptionId;
    public Long amount;
    @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
    public Status status;
    public String receiptUrl;
    public Instant paidDate;
    public String paymentMethod;
    public String paymentProvider;
}
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This is further enhanced by the Panache REST Data extension:

implementation("io.quarkus:quarkus-hibernate-orm-rest-data-panache")
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In Micronaut, Lombok is typically required to avoid excessive boilerplate. Without Lombok, developers must manually write getters and setters:

@Introspected
@AllArgsConstructor
@Setter
@Getter
@Entity
public class Billing extends Audit{
    private UUID jobId;
    private UUID subscriptionId;
    private Long amount;
    @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
    private Status status;
    private String receiptUrl;
    private Instant paidDate;
    private String paymentMethod;
    private String paymentProvider;
}
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While Lombok works well, it adds an additional dependency and build-time complexity.

4. Test-Driven Development (TDD) Experience

Quarkus offers an excellent TDD workflow. During test execution, developers can press R to re-run tests continuously. This allows instant feedback when code changes break existing functionality, enabling a true “test-first” development cycle.

Micronaut currently does not provide an equivalent built-in feature for continuous test reruns.

Documentation

In this area, Micronaut has an edge. Its documentation is more comprehensive, structured, and beginner-friendly compared to Quarkus.

Community

Although Quarkus is newer than Micronaut, its community has grown rapidly. Backed by Red Hat and widely adopted in the enterprise Java ecosystem, Quarkus benefits from strong community engagement, frequent updates, and extensive third-party integrations.

Micronaut

Conclusion

Both Micronaut and Quarkus are excellent frameworks for building microservices. However, Quarkus stands out in areas such as developer productivity, dev mode experience, test automation, and reduced boilerplate.

Micronaut remains a strong choice—particularly due to its documentation—but for my workflow and long-term maintainability goals, Quarkus has proven to be the better fit.

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