Reactive Spring Boot With Kotlin Coroutines: Adding Virtual Threads

A deep dive into how Java 21 virtual threads and Kotlin coroutines compare, coexist, and integrate within Spring Boot applications.

With the advent of JDK 21, there’s a cool new kid in concurrency town: virtual threads! Conceptually, virtual threads claim to offer the same lightweight concurrency characteristics as coroutines. Everyone is wondering, how will they impact coroutines and reactive stacks? Will virtual threads compete with, coexist with, or complement them? And how does all this fit in with Spring Boot? In this session, we’ll explore virtual threads in-depth. Using live coding, accompanied by clarifying illustrations and crisp samples, you’ll gain a robust understanding of how virtual threads and coroutines differ and are similar in the ways in which they address concepts such as structured concurrency, continuations, suspend methods, context propagation, and more. We’ll also explore how virtual threads and coroutines can be applied in Spring Boot by looking at various usage scenarios. At the end of our journey, we’ll have uncovered the similarities and differences between coroutines and virtual threads, revealed their strengths and weaknesses, and explored viable usage scenarios, enabling you to choose the best approach for your specific challenges. Demo project: github.com/upeter/kotlin-springboot-loom-demo #kotlincoroutines #reactiveprogramming #webflux #kotlin