What Is Play Framework?

Play Framework is an easy-to-use, lightweight framework for anyone looking to build web applications with Java and Scala, two popular languages for building Java Virtual Machine (JVM)-based web applications.

Play incorporates Akka — a toolkit and runtime for building concurrent, distributed applications on the JVM — under the hood to support asynchronous, non-blocking I/O.

With its intricate framework architecture, Play Framework makes efficient use of CPU, memory and threads so you can expand your online business without resource bottlenecks or scalability constraints. 

What Is Play Framework Used For?

Play Framework offers a structured approach for web developers working in Java or Scala.

Like Ember.js, Play Framework operates under a model-view-controller (MVC) design to guide its users through website creation and maintenance without over-complicating the process.

How to Use Play Framework

Play leverages Akka Streams for handling streaming data, which was infamous for its ability to process and transfer data from its encrypted library in a buffer space (a data-holding region that stores important information during transfer from one place to another). When using Play Framework, you won’t have to fret that your vital data from one device will be lost during transfer to a different device.

Since its inception, Play has released different versions of this framework to adapt to the rapidly changing internet industry and has garnered an online community of more than 10,000 users eager to discuss Play’s customizable mechanisms.

Among the many interactive features, you’ll find yourself wandering to the app directory more than anything else. Play Framework’s app directory houses Java code, web templates and other resources you may need in your web development journey. Within the app directory, you’ll find several subcategories, listed and discussed below. 

1. Models: This subcategory is where you’ll find business-related files that model database tables. For example, models handle company tasks like shipping and tax charges for consumer websites. 
2. Views: You’ll find all browser-renderable HTML templates here. This subcategory stores HTML for non-immediate use when loading a webpage. HTML can be activated during productivity by using JavaScript code. 
3. Controllers: Controllers are Java source files responsible for completing actions for each API request, or HTTP request handling. These actions are defined as methods used to process and return HTTP responses, which informs the user if a request has been successfully completed or has run into an unexpected error. 
4. Assets: Assets contains static files like stylesheets, JavaScript and images used by the front end. 

Additionally, Play Framework strictly follows RESTful architecture standards. REST architectural style is a software design style that establishes rules to access and use resources for your web creation. REST architectural style makes it easier to securely communicate between systems and handle different data formats, so you won’t have to worry over complicated data and resource transmission. 

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What Are the Alternatives to Play Framework?

Whether you’re a novice or seasoned web developer, you’ll find Play Framework to be more advantageous than its leading competition. To assess quality and performance, let’s take a look at Spring Boot versus Play Framework. 

For starters, Play can be a consumption-friendly resource. The framework doesn’t waste productivity by running assets in the background, which allows you to optimize speed and focus on your most important tasks. Any changes made to the code are reloaded in an instant, so you can focus on productivity and improving your web creation. Overall, Play Framework is the one of the best options for building reliable web applications using modern, up-to-date technology. 

Spring Boot

Play Framework’s leading competition, Spring Boot, certainly gives Play a run for its money, but falls short compared to the ease and flexibility Play Framework offers. Spring is a dependency injection framework, which means some functions depend on others to be executed properly. This means Spring requires plenty of patience to cope with its long wait times. Spring Boot may require additional tooling for live reloads, whereas Play provides built-in hot reload. Overall, Spring Boot can be more time-consuming to use than Play depending on development needs.

Frequently Asked Questions