Size statistics, in the form of production lines of code:

July 18, 2026 · View on GitHub

Size statistics, in the form of production lines of code:

Web frameworks

Minum	Javalin	Spring Boot
6,856	148,744	1,085,405

Our project is 22 times smaller than Javalin, which bills itself as "A simple web framework for Java and Kotlin".

Minum does not require a separate web server, database, or HTML parsing - it is all built-in.

The web server is sufficiently performant and capable for most cases. It also makes use of some security algorithms to protect itself in the harsh modern internet environment. It is also well-tested and there are examples of its use linked on the top-level README.

Minum	Nginx	Tomcat
2,875	163,000	242,000

Templating

The templating is logic-free - the only syntax is to use a key inside double brackets. Any extras, such as sanitizing text for HTML, or looping, is implemented through ordinary code, which is far easier to debug.

See an example of sophisticated use here.

Minum	Mustache	Pebble	Rocker	Thymeleaf
214	11,346	16,876	11,996	43,056

Database

The database is exceptionally simplistic but stable and minimal. Any other database may be used in its place - the framework does nothing to hinder that choice.

Minum	Postgresql	MySQL	SQLite
1,231	1,300,000	1,500,000	116,000

Logging

The logging is as simple as possible, without causing undue negative performance impacts. Each method takes a lambda to be run later in a queue. The lack of complexity means less surface area for bugs, and the performance is more than acceptable in most cases.

Minum	log4j	slf4j
402	70,000	3,400

HTML Parser

This is a parser for the common case in web application development - parsing one's own HTML code, for such reasons as extracting data or testing.

Minum	JSoup
579	14,337

Testing

These are mostly basic assertion functions, adhering to tenets of minimalism. There is no need for an overabundance of assertion types - assertTrue and assertEquals works for most cases.

Minum	JUnit4
187	10,834

Background task processing

This is provided by ActionQueue, in the queue package. See the development_handbook in the docs.

Minum	Jobrunr
154	22,581

Various helpful utilities

These utilities were sufficient for the development of a fully-featured web application. Perhaps there are other utilities that would assist, but in nearly every case I encounter, there is a basic-Java-only approach that obviates an extra dependency.

Minum	Apache Commons IO
774	18,045

Security

There is a program called TheBrig provided which can assist with checking incoming requests for potential malicious behavior. For example, if a request causes an exception in the TLS encryption code, it might mean the client is using a application scanning tool. Alternately, another example is if the client tries requesting a path like .env, which may suggest they are looking for vulnerabilities, rather than being a good-faith user. In those cases, that client's ip address can be banned from making requests of the server for a period of time. see SUSPICIOUS_ERRORS, SUSPICIOUS_PATHS and VULN_SEEKING_JAIL_DURATION in the minum.config.

Minum	OWASP AppSensor	Spring Security
201	24,668	100,544

Javascript utilities

There are no JavaScript utilities provided. You may add these if you wish, but do not underestimate the power of vanilla JavaScript.

Minum	Various
0	Varies

Javascript framework

The prevailing pattern for new web applications is to include a reactive web dependency such as React. However, the majority of new web applications lack any real need for that kind of reactivity, being mostly a series of forms. See this well-written essay on why server-side rendering is better in most cases.

Minum	React
0	13,000

Javascript form handling

If you don't require a reactive JavaScript library, then vanilla form handling is already provided, meaning less code.

Minum	react-hook-forms
0	4,682

Database object-relational-mapper

If you use simpler communication with the database, respecting the difference between a tabular structure and your objects, there won't be as many leaky abstractions and giant dependencies. Further, if you make use of the database bundled with Minum, there is no need for mapping at all - the data remains a collection of objects in memory, with no friction at all.

Minum	Hibernate
0	452,000

Database connection pooling

If you don't run your database as a separate server, then you don't need to worry about pooling your socket connections for it. Nor do you worry about authentication.

Minum	HikariCP
0	5,435

Transactions

It is occasionally necessary to ensure that certain actions take place completely, or not at all. This is not a difficult programming assignment - that is, it certainly has edge cases and involves tedious work, but it is not beyond an experienced developer to write proper code, guided by testing, that meets the business needs correctly.

This is a perfect example of the kind of universal dependency inclusion that ends up making our systems indecipherable and unmaintainable, despite assertions to the contrary, and fills up sites like StackOverflow with questions about its byzantine complexity, where a search for "@Transactional" yields twenty-five thousand results.

Minum	Spring @Transactional implementation
0	7,132

Appendix

(all measurements of lines of code are for production code - that is, non-test-code)

used cloc for lines-of-code calculations.

Basis for Spring Boot's size:

Component	LOC

essential dependencies
logback	33,654
jackson-core	31,035
jackson-databind	75,165
micrometer	48,659
log4j	113,377
tomcat	258,583
slf4j	3,000
spring-framework	365,961
spring-boot	156,061

total	1,085,405

Basis for Javalin's size:

Note that this is a conservative measure - I'm not even counting the subdependencies, but instead only one layer deep. Also note that Minum contains code for automated testing and makes concientious decisions to provide the user-oriented functionality without requiring this much technology - therefore, it is a valid apples-to-apples comparison

Component	LOC

Javalin	6,420

essential dependencies
slf4j-api	3,070
slf4j-simple	423
jetty-server	26,632
jetty-ee10-servlet	20,293
jetty-ee10-websocket-jetty-server	1,068
websocket-jetty-server	890
websocket-jetty-api	800
subtotal	62,666

optional dependencies:
jvmbrotli	895
brotli4j	1,492
jackson-databind	73,242
jackson-module-kotlin	1,407
gson	9,042
subtotal	86,078

total	148,744