WebFlux is the Spring Framework implementation of Reactive Streams. We see a rise in reactive programming models across our teams in general and the use of WebFlux in teams who are working in the Spring ecosystem. It's best used in large microservices ecosystems where the high performance of the requests is a major concern. It allows overlapping request processing asynchronously without the complications of using multiple threads. WebFlux uses Reactor as its reactive library but it is interoperable with other reactive libraries via Reactive Streams. It uses Netty as its underlying high-performance communications engine. Although we encourage using Reactive Streams, adopting this programming model requires a significant shift in thinking.
Spring Framework 5, released over a year ago, embraces reactive streams, a standard for asynchronous stream processing with non-blocking backpressure. The WebFlux module introduces a reactive alternative to the traditional Spring MVC module for writing web applications in the Spring ecosystem. After working with it on a number of applications, our teams have come away impressed and report that the reactive (functional) approach improves code readability and system throughput. They do note, though, that adopting WebFlux requires a significant shift in thinking and recommend to factor this into the decision to choose WebFlux over Spring MVC.
