Rodney Taylor

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1 minute read

In today’s cloud-native world, building lightweight, high-performance microservices in Java often means balancing standards compliance with simplicity and speed. Helidon MP, a project from Oracle, does exactly that: it combines the power of Eclipse MicroProfile with a minimalistic runtime, offering a modern platform for enterprise Java microservices.

In this article, we will dive into the world of Helidon MP and create a Helidon MP based project!

What Is Helidon MP?

Helidon MP is the MicroProfile edition of Helidon. While Helidon SE provides a functional, low-level API for microservices, Helidon MP adds a full stack of enterprise-ready features:

  • JAX-RS for building RESTful APIs

  • CDI for dependency injection

  • JSON-P/B for JSON processing

  • Health checks, metrics, and tracing for observability

  • Fault tolerance and configuration via MicroProfile APIs

Unlike traditional Java EE servers, Helidon MP is lightweight, fast, and cloud-native. It doesn’t require a full application server and runs directly on the JVM or as a GraalVM native image.

Why Choose Helidon MP?

  • Standards-Based: Implementing MicroProfile ensures portability across compliant frameworks.

  • Cloud-Ready: Out-of-the-box support for Docker, Kubernetes, Prometheus, and OpenTelemetry.

  • High Performance: Minimal overhead and fast startup times make it ideal for microservices and serverless deployments.

  • Modern Java Features: Supports Java 21 features, including virtual threads, enabling simple, efficient concurrency.

Getting Started

Using Helidon Project Generator

Head to helidon’s starter page for a guided starter project generator. Helidon starter generator
Simply click download to access your project.

Using Maven

A minimal Helidon MP project can be created using Maven:

mvn -U archetype:generate -DinteractiveMode=false \
    -DarchetypeGroupId=io.helidon.archetypes \
    -DarchetypeArtifactId=helidon-quickstart-mp \
    -DarchetypeVersion=4.1.0 \
    -DgroupId=com.javarchitect.helidon \
    -DartifactId=helidon-mp-example \
    -Dpackage=com.javarchitect.helidon

From there, you can define JAX-RS endpoints, add MicroProfile health checks, and run your microservice in a few simple steps.

Conclusion

Helidon MP is perfect for developers who want enterprise Java microservices that are lightweight, standards-compliant, and cloud-ready. By leveraging MicroProfile and Helidon’s high-performance runtime, you get the best of both worlds: modern microservices architecture without the complexity of a traditional Java EE server.

For more information, visit the official Helidon website.

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