Understanding a Real-World Spring Boot Project Structure (Best Practices)

🧩 Understanding a Real-World Spring Boot Project Structure (Best Practices) When you start working with Spring Boot, everything feels simple… until your project grows. Then suddenly: 😵Too many files 😵‍💫Confusing structure ❌Hard to maintain code In this article, I’ll walk you through a clean and scalable Spring Boot project structure based on a real example. 📁 Project Overview Here’s a simplified view of the structure: src/main/java/org.sid ├── controllers ├── dto ├── entities ├── enums ├── mappers ├── repositories ├── securityKeycloak ├── services Each layer has a clear responsibility, which makes the application maintainable and scalable. 🎯 1. Entities (entities) Represents database tables. 🧠 2. Repository Layer (repositories) This layer communicates with the database. 👉 Uses Spring Data JPA ✅ No implementation needed — Spring generates it automatically! 🗄️ 3. DTOs (dto) DTO = Data Transfer Object 👉 Used to send data between layers safely ✅ Why use DTOs? _Protect sensitive Data: _ In