Spring Boot’s operational and development toolbox has three distinct jobs: Actuator exposes management and diagnostic endpoints, DevTools adds local-development conveniences, and Docker Compose or Testcontainers can help run dependent services during development. They are not production substitutes for a monitoring system or deployment configuration, and their exact setup can vary by Spring Boot release.
What Spring Boot Actuator does
Actuator provides management and monitoring endpoints for inspecting and operating a Spring Boot application. In a web application, an enabled endpoint can be exposed over HTTP; the usual path combines the /actuator base path with the endpoint ID. For example, the health endpoint is commonly available at /actuator/health. See the Spring Boot HTTP monitoring reference.
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Enabled is not the same as exposed
An endpoint must be enabled and exposed through an appropriate mechanism before it can be reached there. Do not assume that every Actuator endpoint is enabled or publicly available just because Actuator is included. Review exposure settings and protect management access according to your application’s environment; a diagnostic endpoint can disclose operational details.
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By default, management endpoints use the application’s web server. The management.server.port property can assign management traffic a separate port. Sharing the application port may suit cloud deployments, while a distinct port may fit some data-center arrangements. A separate port changes where the management server listens; it does not, by itself, make the endpoints secure.
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How to inspect Spring Boot metrics
Spring Boot integrates with Micrometer, which provides a common instrumentation layer and registry integrations for monitoring systems such as Prometheus, OTLP, Datadog, New Relic, and Graphite. Having an integration available does not mean every backend is active automatically: the relevant registry dependency and configuration still matter. The Spring Boot metrics reference explains the supported setup.
Use the Actuator endpoint for diagnosis
The /actuator/metrics endpoint lets you list meter names and inspect a particular meter, including measurements filtered by tags. It is not available by default; expose it explicitly before using it. Use the meter’s code-level name in the endpoint, even when the name shown by an external monitoring backend has been normalized.
For example, after configuring exposure, a request to /actuator/metrics lists available meters. A request to /actuator/metrics/{meter-name} drills into one meter; supported tag filters can narrow the result. This endpoint is useful for troubleshooting what the application is recording, not a replacement for a monitoring backend that retains and visualizes telemetry over time.
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Inspection versus export
Actuator’s metrics endpoint is an application-side diagnostic view. Exporting measurements to a backend is a separate integration and configuration task. Choose and configure a Micrometer registry for the monitoring destination you actually use rather than assuming that enabling the endpoint sends data elsewhere.
Where OpenTelemetry fits
Spring Boot’s Actuator module includes basic support for OpenTelemetry. Its documented integration can provide an OpenTelemetry bean, register certain SDK provider beans, and provide a Resource bean whose attributes can be configured. These building blocks do not mean every telemetry signal is automatically exported. See the Spring Boot observability reference.
- Metrics: Spring Boot does not automatically export OpenTelemetry metrics.
- Logs: Spring Boot does not automatically export OpenTelemetry logs.
- Traces: trace export is auto-configured only when Micrometer Tracing is present.
Also, disabling Spring Boot’s OpenTelemetry support does not necessarily disable metrics functionality: Spring Boot does not use OpenTelemetry’s metrics functionality for its metrics support. Keep the distinction between the integration’s SDK pieces, the signal being produced, and the exporter that sends it.
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What Spring Boot DevTools does
DevTools is a development aid, not a production feature. It provides development-time conveniences such as application restart support. The official Developer Tools reference recommends keeping it optional or development-only. Spring Boot automatically disables DevTools when the application runs as a fully packaged application, such as one launched with java -jar.
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Spring Boot supports two development-time service approaches: Docker Compose and Testcontainers. Both can make local dependencies easier to start alongside an application, but they use different configuration styles. The Spring Boot 4.0 development-time services reference describes these workflows. Development-time services are disabled after deployment.
| Approach | Configuration style | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Docker Compose | A Compose YAML file, conventionally a nearby compose.yml, defines and manages a group of containers. |
A local stack of dependent services managed together. |
| Testcontainers | Java-based configuration; the documented example uses a test classpath. | Development dependencies configured in Java, particularly alongside tests. |
These are development workflows, not declarations that the same services will be created in production. Check the reference for your Spring Boot release before adopting specific configuration snippets or defaults: the HTTP endpoint page cited here identifies itself as Spring Boot 4.1.1, while the development-time services page is under the 4.0 reference path. The article title does not identify a target release, so version-sensitive properties and examples should be verified against the version your project uses.
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