I'm pretty new to the Spring Framework, I've been playing around with it and putting a few samples apps together for the purposes of evaluating Spring MVC for use in an upcoming company project. So far I really like what I see in Spring MVC, seems very easy to use and encourages you to write classes that are very unit test-friendly.

Just as an exercise, I'm writing a main method for one of my sample/test projects. One thing I'm unclear about is the exact differences between BeanFactory and ApplicationContext - which is appropriate to use in which conditions?

I understand that ApplicationContext extends BeanFactory, but if I'm just writing a simple main method, do I need the extra functionality that ApplicationContext provides? And just exactly what kind of extra functionality does ApplicationContext provide?

In addition to answering "which should I use in a main() method", are there any standards or guidelines as far as which implementation I should use in such a scenario? Should my main() method be written to depend on the bean/application configuration to be in XML format - is that a safe assumption, or am I locking the user into something specific?

And does this answer change in a web environment - if any of my classes needed to be aware of Spring, are they more likely to need ApplicationContext?

Thanks for any help. I know a lot of these questions are probably answered in the reference manual, but I'm having a hard time finding a clear breakdown of these two interfaces and the pros/cons of each without reading thru the manual with a fine-tooth comb.

19 Answers 19


The spring docs are great on this: 3.8.1. BeanFactory or ApplicationContext?. They have a table with a comparison, I'll post a snippet:

Bean Factory

  • Bean instantiation/wiring

Application Context

  • Bean instantiation/wiring
  • Automatic BeanPostProcessor registration
  • Automatic BeanFactoryPostProcessor registration
  • Convenient MessageSource access (for i18n)
  • ApplicationEvent publication


  • 3
    BeanFactory is lightweight, but if you're going to be using Spring "for real", you may as well go with the ApplicationContext: there is very little overhead involved if you don't use its fancy features, but they're still available for if/when you do use them. – MetroidFan2002 Oct 29 '08 at 6:21
  • 2
    What does it mean when you say "automatic BeanPostPorcessor regisgration"? Does it mean that class doesn't have to implement that interface? – Abidi Mar 6 '14 at 22:00
  • 2
    ApplicationContext supports AOP against BeanFactory. – ininprsr Jan 17 '16 at 6:57
  • 1
    With BeanFactory we can pass constructor parameters dynamically but with ApplicationContext we can't do that. – Half Blood Prince Jun 13 '17 at 7:28
  • 1
    An important note from the linked Spring documentation: "Versions of Spring 2.0 and above make heavy use of the BeanPostProcessor extension point (to effect proxying and suchlike), and if you are using just a plain BeanFactory then a fair amount of support such as transactions and AOP will not take effect (at least not without some extra steps on your part)." – mark.monteiro Aug 16 '18 at 20:49

To me, the primary difference to choose BeanFactory over ApplicationContext seems to be that ApplicationContext will pre-instantiate all of the beans. From the Spring docs:

Spring sets properties and resolves dependencies as late as possible, when the bean is actually created. This means that a Spring container which has loaded correctly can later generate an exception when you request an object if there is a problem creating that object or one of its dependencies. For example, the bean throws an exception as a result of a missing or invalid property. This potentially delayed visibility of some configuration issues is why ApplicationContext implementations by default pre-instantiate singleton beans. At the cost of some upfront time and memory to create these beans before they are actually needed, you discover configuration issues when the ApplicationContext is created, not later. You can still override this default behavior so that singleton beans will lazy-initialize, rather than be pre-instantiated.

Given this, I initially chose BeanFactory for use in integration/performance tests since I didn't want to load the entire application for testing isolated beans. However -- and somebody correct me if I'm wrong -- BeanFactory doesn't support classpath XML configuration. So BeanFactory and ApplicationContext each provide a crucial feature I wanted, but neither did both.

Near as I can tell, the note in the documentation about overriding default instantiation behavior takes place in the configuration, and it's per-bean, so I can't just set the "lazy-init" attribute in the XML file or I'm stuck maintaining a version of it for test and one for deployment.

What I ended up doing was extending ClassPathXmlApplicationContext to lazily load beans for use in tests like so:

public class LazyLoadingXmlApplicationContext extends ClassPathXmlApplicationContext {

    public LazyLoadingXmlApplicationContext(String[] configLocations) {

     * Upon loading bean definitions, force beans to be lazy-initialized.
     * @see org.springframework.context.support.AbstractXmlApplicationContext#loadBeanDefinitions(org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader)

    protected void loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader reader) throws IOException {
        for (String name: reader.getBeanFactory().getBeanDefinitionNames()) {
            AbstractBeanDefinition beanDefinition = (AbstractBeanDefinition) reader.getBeanFactory().getBeanDefinition(name);

  • 2
    I would argue that if your unit tests are loading up your full Spring context, they aren't "unit tests", but integration tests. – matt b Mar 1 '10 at 12:50
  • 1
    Good point. In my case I actually needed to load beans from the context for performance and integration tests, and wrote "unit tests" out of habit. I've edited my answer accordingly. – Lyle Mar 2 '10 at 15:11
  • 1
    BeanFactory doesn't support classpath XML configuration. I think it does: stackoverflow.com/questions/5231371/… – Xtreme Biker Aug 25 '14 at 7:38

Spring provides two kinds of IOC container, one is XMLBeanFactory and other is ApplicationContext.

|                                       | BeanFactory     |       ApplicationContext       |
| Annotation support                    | No              | Yes                            |
| BeanPostProcessor Registration        | Manual          | Automatic                      |
| implementation                        | XMLBeanFactory  | ClassPath/FileSystem/WebXmlApplicationContext|
| internationalization                  | No              | Yes                            |
| Enterprise services                   | No              | Yes                            |
| ApplicationEvent publication          | No              | Yes                            |

enter image description here

  • FileSystemXmlApplicationContext Beans loaded through the full path.
  • ClassPathXmlApplicationContext Beans loaded through the CLASSPATH
  • XMLWebApplicationContext and AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext beans loaded through the web application context.
  • AnnotationConfigApplicationContext Loading Spring beans from Annotation based configuration.


  ApplicationContext applicationContext = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(BeansConfiguration.class);
  • ApplicationContext is the container initialized by a ContextLoaderListener or ContextLoaderServlet defined in a web.xml and ContextLoaderPlugin defined in struts-config.xml.

Note: XmlBeanFactory is deprecated as of Spring 3.1 in favor of DefaultListableBeanFactory and XmlBeanDefinitionReader.

  • 1
    its AnnotationConfigApplicationContext not -AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext- below ClassPathXmlApplicationContext in the diagram – Akhil Jain Jul 22 '18 at 12:48

To add onto what Miguel Ping answered, here is another section from the documentation that answers this as well:

Short version: use an ApplicationContext unless you have a really good reason for not doing so. For those of you that are looking for slightly more depth as to the 'but why' of the above recommendation, keep reading.

(posting this for any future Spring novices who might read this question)

  1. ApplicationContext is more preferred way than BeanFactory

  2. In new Spring versions BeanFactory is replaced with ApplicationContext. But still BeanFactory exists for backward compatability

  3. ApplicationContext extends BeanFactory and has the following benefits
    • it supports internationalization for text messages
    • it supports event publication to the registered listeners
    • access to the resources such as URLs and files

I think it's better to always use ApplicationContext, unless you're in a mobile environment like someone else said already. ApplicationContext has more functionality and you definitely want to use the PostProcessors such as RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor, AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor and CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor, which will help you simplify your Spring configuration files, and you can use annotations such as @Required, @PostConstruct, @Resource, etc in your beans.

Even if you don't use all the stuff ApplicationContext offers, it's better to use it anyway, and then later if you decide to use some resource stuff such as messages or post processors, or the other schema to add transactional advices and such, you will already have an ApplicationContext and won't need to change any code.

If you're writing a standalone app, load the ApplicationContext in your main method, using a ClassPathXmlApplicationContext, and get the main bean and invoke its run() (or whatever method) to start your app. If you're writing a web app, use the ContextLoaderListener in web.xml so that it creates the ApplicationContext and you can later get it from the ServletContext, regardless of whether you're using JSP, JSF, JSTL, struts, Tapestry, etc.

Also, remember you can use multiple Spring configuration files and you can either create the ApplicationContext by listing all the files in the constructor (or listing them in the context-param for the ContextLoaderListener), or you can just load a main config file which has import statements. You can import a Spring configuration file into another Spring configuration file by using <import resource="otherfile.xml" /> which is very useful when you programmatically create the ApplicationContext in the main method and load only one Spring config file.


ApplicationContext: It loads spring beans configured in spring configuration file,and manages the life cycle of the spring bean as and WHEN CONTAINER STARTS.It won't wait until getBean("springbeanref") is called.

BeanFactory It loads spring beans configured in spring configuration file,manages the life cycle of the spring bean when we call the getBean("springbeanref").So when we call the getBean("springbeanref") at the time of spring bean life cycle starts.


For the most part, ApplicationContext is preferred unless you need to save resources, like on a mobile application.

I'm not sure about depending on XML format, but I'm pretty sure the most common implementations of ApplicationContext are the XML ones such as ClassPathXmlApplicationContext, XmlWebApplicationContext, and FileSystemXmlApplicationContext. Those are the only three I've ever used.

If your developing a web app, it's safe to say you'll need to use XmlWebApplicationContext.

If you want your beans to be aware of Spring, you can have them implement BeanFactoryAware and/or ApplicationContextAware for that, so you can use either BeanFactory or ApplicationContext and choose which interface to implement.

  • This is relevant section from documentation As the ApplicationContext includes all functionality of the BeanFactory, it is generally recommended that it be used in preference to the BeanFactory, except for a few limited situations such as in an Applet, where memory consumption might be critical and a few extra kilobytes might make a difference. However, for most 'typical' enterprise applications and systems, the ApplicationContext is what you will want to use. – M. Atif Riaz Jan 13 '14 at 10:19

BeanFactory and ApplicationContext both are ways to get beans from your spring IOC container but still there are some difference.

BeanFactory is the actual container which instantiates, configures, and manages a number of bean's. These beans are typically collaborate with one another, and thus have dependencies between themselves. These dependencies are reflected in the configuration data used by the BeanFactory.

BeanFactory and ApplicationContext both are Java interfaces and ApplicationContext extends BeanFactory. Both of them are configuration using XML configuration files. In short BeanFactory provides basic Inversion of control(IoC) and Dependency Injection (DI) features while ApplicationContext provides advanced features.

A BeanFactory is represented by the interface "org.springframework.beans.factory" Where BeanFactory, for which there are multiple implementations.

ClassPathResource resource = new ClassPathResource("appConfig.xml");
XmlBeanFactory factory = new XmlBeanFactory(resource);


  1. BeanFactory instantiate bean when you call getBean() method while ApplicationContext instantiate Singleton bean when container is started, It doesn't wait for getBean() to be called.

  2. BeanFactory doesn't provide support for internationalization but ApplicationContext provides support for it.

  3. Another difference between BeanFactory vs ApplicationContext is ability to publish event to beans that are registered as listener.



  6. BeanFactory by default its support Lazy loading and ApplicationContext by default support Aggresive loading.

  • Can you please explain your #1 more clearly, if I have defined a singleton bean in my spring config file then spring container will create a singleton of the same, how does it matter whether BeanFactory or ApplicationContext is there. – pjj Mar 26 '18 at 10:10

Difference between BeanFactory and ApplicationContext are following:

  3. BeanFactory doesnt support internatiolization but ApplicationContext supports internationalization.

Using BeanFactory:

BeanFactory beanfactory = new XMLBeanFactory(new FileSystemResource("spring.xml")); Triangle triangle =(Triangle)beanFactory.getBean("triangle");

Using ApplicationContext:

ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXMLApplicationContext("spring.xml") Triangle triangle =(Triangle)beanFactory.getBean("triangle");


Feature Matrix of Bean Factory vs Application Context sourced from spring docs

enter image description here

Screenshot of features of BeanFacotry and ApplicationContext


Basically we can create spring container object in two ways

  1. using BeatFactory
  2. using ApplicationContext

both are the interfaces

using implementation classes we can create object for spring container

coming to the differences


  1. Does not support the Annotation based dependency Injection.

  2. Doesn't Support I18N

  3. By default its support Lazy loading

  4. it doesn't allow configure to multiple configuration files.

ex: BeanFactory context=new XmlBeanFactory(new Resource("applicationContext.xml"));


  1. Support Annotation based dependency Injection.-@Autowired, @PreDestroy

  2. Support I18N

  3. its By default support Aggresive loading.

  4. it allow to configure multiple configuration files.

ApplicationContext context=new ClasspathXmlApplicationContext("applicationContext.xml");




ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("spring.xml");


ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext{"spring_dao.xml","spring_service.xml};

You can use one or more xml file depending on your project requirement. As I am here using two xml files i.e. one for configuration details for service classes other for dao classes. Here ClassPathXmlApplicationContext is child of ApplicationContext.

c. BeanFactory Container is basic container, it can only create objects and inject Dependencies. But we can’t attach other services like security, transaction, messaging etc. to provide all the services we have to use ApplicationContext Container.

d. BeanFactory doesn't provide support for internationalization i.e. i18n but ApplicationContext provides support for it.

e. BeanFactory Container doesn't support the feature of AutoScanning (Support Annotation based dependency Injection), but ApplicationContext Container supports.

f. Beanfactory Container will not create a bean object until the request time. It means Beanfactory Container loads beans lazily. While ApplicationContext Container creates objects of Singleton bean at the time of loading only. It means there is early loading.

g. Beanfactory Container support only two scopes (singleton & prototype) of the beans. But ApplicationContext Container supports all the beans scope.


Refer this doc from Spring Docs:


5.15.1 BeanFactory or ApplicationContext?

Use an ApplicationContext unless you have a good reason for not doing so.

Because the ApplicationContext includes all functionality of the BeanFactory, it is generally recommended over the BeanFactory, except for a few situations such as in an Applet where memory consumption might be critical and a few extra kilobytes might make a difference. However, for most typical enterprise applications and systems, the ApplicationContext is what you will want to use. Spring 2.0 and later makes heavy use of the BeanPostProcessor extension point (to effect proxying and so on). If you use only a plain BeanFactory, a fair amount of support such as transactions and AOP will not take effect, at least not without some extra steps on your part. This situation could be confusing because nothing is actually wrong with the configuration.


ApplicationContext is a big brother of BeanFactory and this would all thing that BeanFactory are provide plus many other things.

In addition to standard org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanFactory lifecycle capabilities, ApplicationContext implementations detect and invoke ApplicationContextAware beans as well as ResourceLoaderAware, ApplicationEventPublisherAware and MessageSourceAware beans.


In a real-time scenario, the difference between the Spring IOC Core container (BeanFactory) and Advanced J2EE container (ApplicationContext) are as follows.

  1. BeanFactory will create objects for the beans (i.e., for POJO classes) mentioned in the spring.xml file (<bean></bean>) only when you call the .getBean() method, but whereas ApplicationContext creates the objects for all the beans (<bean></bean> if its scope is not explicitly mentioned as "Prototype") configured in the spring.xml while loading the spring.xml file itself.

  2. BeanFactory: (Lazy container because it creates the objects for the beans only when you explicitly call from the user/main class)

     * Using core Container - Lazy container - Because it creates the bean objects On-Demand
    //creating a resource
    Resource r = (Resource) new ClassPathResource("com.spring.resources/spring.xml");
    //creating BeanFactory 
    BeanFactory factory=new XmlBeanFactory(r);
    //Getting the bean for the POJO class "HelloWorld.java"
    HelloWorld worldObj1 = (HelloWorld) factory.getBean("test");

    ApplicationContext: (Eager container because of creating the objects of all singleton beans while loading the spring.xml file itself)

    ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("com/ioc/constructorDI/resources/spring.xml");
  3. Technically, using ApplicationContext is recommended because in real-time applications, the bean objects will be created while the application is getting started in the server itself. This reduces the response time for the user request as the objects are already available to respond.

  • Stack Overflow isn't a forum, so I've edited your answer to more directly respond to the question and avoid inviting discussion. – Jeffrey Bosboom Feb 26 '16 at 1:41

I think it is worth mentioning that since Spring 3, if you want to create a factory, you can also use the @configuration annotation combined with the proper @scope

public class MyFactory {

    public MyClass create() {
        return new MyClass();

Your factory should be visible by Spring container using the @ComponentScan annotation or xml configuration

Spring bean scopes article from baeldung site


do use BeanFactory for non-web applications because it supports only Singleton and Prototype bean-scopes.

While ApplicationContext container does support all the bean-scopes so you should use it for web applications.


In summary:

The ApplicationContext includes all functionality of the BeanFactory. It is generally recommended to use the former.

There are some limited situations such as in a Mobile application, where memory consumption might be critical.

In that scenarios, It can be justifiable to use the more lightweight BeanFactory. However, in the most enterprise applications, the ApplicationContext is what you will want to use.

For more, see my blog post:

Difference between BeanFactory and ApplicationContext in Spring – The java spring blog from the basics
