How to Run a Spring Boot Application | 5 Easy Ways for Developers

Learn different ways to run a Spring Boot application: from your IDE, command line, Maven, Gradle, and using the Spring Boot Maven Plugin. Step-by-step examples are included.

Once you’ve built a Spring Boot application, the next step is to run it. But how exactly do you do that?

Spring Boot is designed for simplicity — and that includes starting your application.

In this article, you’ll learn 5 different ways to run a Spring Boot application, each suited for different development or deployment scenarios.

🔹 1. Run Using the main() Method (Inside Your IDE)

Every Spring Boot app comes with a main() method like this:

@SpringBootApplication
public class MyApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(MyApplication.class, args);
    }
}

✅ Steps (In IntelliJ or Eclipse):

1. Right-click on the class that contains the main() method.
2. Select Run ‘MyApplication.main()’.
3. Your app starts at http://localhost:8080.

💡 Best for: Local development and debugging.

🔹 2. Run Using Maven (Command Line)