{"id":1974,"date":"2021-05-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kindsonthegenius.com\/blog\/introduction-to-docker-compose-with-spring-boot-example\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T18:42:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:42:31","slug":"introduction-to-docker-compose-with-spring-boot-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kindsonthegenius.com\/blog\/introduction-to-docker-compose-with-spring-boot-example\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Docker-Compose \u2013 With Spring Boot Example"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a beginner tutorial on how to build and deploy microservices using Docker-Compose. But first, we’ll learn what docker-compose is and what it’s used for.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Introduction to Docker Compose<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Create the Spring Boot API<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Create the Spring Boot UI with Thymeleaf<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Create the Packages<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Create the Docker File<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Create the Docker Compose File<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Fire Up the Containers!<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    1. Introduction to Docker-Compose<\/strong><\/h5>\n

    In the previous tutorial, we learnt how to Dockerize our Spring application. That was just a single spring boot application.<\/p>\n

    What if you have two or more application where one depends on the other. For example, there’s an API for the backend. Then you also have a frontend UI application create with Thymeleaf that fetches data from the API backend.<\/p>\n

    Using Docker-compose, you can create this two images at the same time and run the containers as well.<\/p>\n

    Let’s now take a demo using Spring Boot.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    2. Create Spring Boot API<\/strong><\/h5>\n

    You can get the complete API application here in my Github repository<\/a>.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    3. Create a Spring Boot UI using Thymeleaf<\/strong><\/h5>\n

    I already created this application. So you can just get it from my Github repository here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    So once you have these application, start the API (backend) and then start the UI. You’ll have a list of names displayed on the UI. This list is coming from the backend.<\/p>\n

    Here’s the controller endpoint that fetches data from the backend:<\/p>\n

    @GetMapping<\/span>(<\/span>\"\/home\"<\/span>)<\/span>\r\npublic<\/span>  String home<\/span>(<\/span>Model model){<\/span>\r\n    Object[]<\/span> objects =<\/span>  restTemplate.<\/span>getForObject<\/span>(<\/span>\"http:\/\/apihost:8080\/friends\"<\/span>,<\/span> Object[].<\/span>class<\/span>);<\/span>\r\n    List<<\/span>Object><\/span> friends =<\/span> Arrays.<\/span>asList<\/span>(<\/span>objects);<\/span>\r\n    model.<\/span>addAttribute<\/span>(<\/span>\"friends\"<\/span>,<\/span> friends);<\/span>\r\n    return<\/span> \"index\"<\/span>;<\/span>\r\n}<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Note the hostname apihost<\/em> used for making the request. This is the name of the container for the api application. We’ll talk about this when we create the docker-compose.yaml file.<\/p>\n
     <\/p>\n
    4. Create the Packages (Jar files)<\/strong><\/h5>\n
    We would need to then create the jar files for both applications using the command below:<\/p>\n
    mvn clean install\r\n<\/pre>\n
    You’ll have to do this for both application. After this command executes, you’ll see the jar file available in the target folder. The file names will be:<\/p>\n