The most common Spring questions I get, by far, are variations on:

“How do I get started with Spring Boot?”
“Do I need to learn Spring first, or can I just learn Spring Boot?”
“How exactly is Boot different than Spring?”

Now, in 2026, yes, all Spring applications use Spring Boot by default, thanks to the huge boost in productivity that it gets us.

My intro-level course - “Learn Spring” covers the basics of the Spring core framework and, naturally, Spring Boot.
So, we’ll use Boot to develop the application in the course, but also dive into the behind-the-scenes to understand how this works.
If you want to get started on your Spring journey and you’re not sure which course to pick, “Learn Spring” is a great first step.

From there, you can continue with the persistence, REST, or security courses, depending on what your next focus is.

All my courses are now available at a discount during the sale:
>> All Baeldung Courses - 30% off!

Enjoy the material. Cheers,
Eugen