In today’s Java ecosystem, mentioning the Struts framework often earns a raised eyebrow or a nostalgic smile. Surrounded by modern frameworks like Spring Boot, Quarkus, Micronaut, and Jakarta EE, Struts is frequently labeled as outdated or obsolete. Yet despite its age and despite the relentless pace of innovation in web development, there are still solid reasons to appreciate—and even like—the Struts framework.

Liking Struts is not about rejecting progress or clinging blindly to the past. It’s about recognizing the value of clarity, discipline, and architectural honesty that Struts embodied and passed on to an entire generation of developers.

Struts Taught Real MVC, Not Abstracted MVC

One of the most important contributions Struts made was teaching developers the Model-View-Controller pattern in a way that was impossible to misunderstand. Struts did not hide the architecture behind annotations or auto-generated layers. Every piece of the request lifecycle was visible and explicit.

A request entered the application through the ActionServlet.
Mappings were defined clearly in the configuration.
Forms handled input.
Actions executed business logic.
JSPs rendered the final output.

Nothing was magical. Nothing was implicit. Developers could trace a request from browser to response with absolute clarity. For many engineers, Struts was not just a framework—it was an education in how web applications actually work.

Even today, many developers who understand modern frameworks deeply first learned MVC through Struts.

Predictability Over Convenience

Modern frameworks optimize for convenience. They favor auto-configuration, convention over configuration, and implicit behavior. These approaches speed up development but can also make debugging difficult when something goes wrong.

Struts chose predictability.

If a request failed, there were only a few places to look. Most of the time, the answer lived in one central file: struts-config.xml. Routing, forms, forwards, and actions were all declared in one place. The application structure was transparent.

This predictability mattered immensely in large enterprise systems where stability and maintainability were more important than speed of prototyping. Struts applications behaved the same way every time, regardless of developer or deployment environment.

The Discipline of Explicit Configuration

XML configuration often gets criticized today, but in the era of Struts, XML taught discipline. It forced developers to think about application flow, naming conventions, and architectural consistency.

You could not accidentally create a route or hide logic behind annotations. Every action had to be declared. Every forward had to be defined. This created a shared understanding across teams and made applications easier to audit and reason about.

In large teams, this explicitness reduced surprises. Everyone worked from the same map.

Struts Was Easy to Learn and Easy to Teach

Despite its enterprise reputation, Struts was surprisingly approachable. New developers could understand the basics quickly because the framework followed a consistent and logical structure.

Training new team members was straightforward. Instructors could explain the entire application flow using a single diagram. There were no hidden layers or undocumented conventions to memorize.

For teaching web fundamentals—request handling, form validation, separation of concerns—Struts remains one of the clearest examples ever built.

Built for Stability, Not Trends

Struts was not designed to chase trends. It was designed for stability.

Banks, insurance companies, government portals, and large corporations adopted Struts because it was reliable. Applications ran for years with minimal changes. Updates were conservative. Backward compatibility mattered.

In environments where downtime was unacceptable and predictability was critical, Struts thrived. Many of those systems still exist today, quietly running core business functions without drama.

Minimal Abstraction, Maximum Transparency

One of Struts’ underrated strengths was how little it tried to hide. Business logic lived in actions. Configuration lived in XML. Views lived in JSPs.

Developers could open a project and understand it without needing deep framework-specific knowledge. The learning curve was front-loaded but shallow. Once you understood Struts, you understood most Struts applications.

This transparency made codebases easier to maintain long-term, especially when teams changed over time.

The Influence of Struts Is Everywhere

Even though Struts is no longer dominant, its influence is still visible throughout the Java ecosystem. Many patterns that developers take for granted today originated or were popularized by Struts.

Controller-based routing
Form validation patterns
Clear separation between request handling and business logic
Centralized configuration of request flow

Spring MVC, in particular, borrowed heavily from Struts’ ideas while modernizing the implementation. In many ways, Struts laid the groundwork for everything that followed.

Struts Represents a Simpler Era of Java Development

There is also an emotional reason many developers still like Struts. It represents a time when Java development felt simpler and more deliberate.

Applications were deployed as WAR files.
Servers were restarted manually.
Architectures were understandable end to end.

There were fewer moving parts and fewer layers of abstraction. Debugging was straightforward. You could reason about the entire system without specialized tooling.

In a world now filled with containers, orchestration platforms, service meshes, and configuration sprawl, that simplicity is worth appreciating.

It Still Works

Perhaps the most overlooked fact is this: Struts still works.

For applications that need a traditional MVC structure, predictable behavior, and long-term stability, Struts can still deliver. It may not be suitable for microservices or reactive systems, but not every application needs those paradigms.

There are cases where simplicity, clarity, and reliability matter more than trend alignment—and Struts fits those cases remarkably well.

Why Liking Struts Still Makes Sense

Liking Struts does not mean rejecting modern frameworks. It means recognizing that good engineering principles do not expire. Clarity, discipline, transparency, and predictability are timeless.

Struts embodied those values. It trained developers to think about architecture, not just features. It rewarded understanding over automation. It respected the intelligence of its users.

For many experienced developers, Struts was the framework that shaped how they think about web applications even today.

Final Thoughts

Struts may no longer dominate job postings or conference talks, but its legacy is deeply embedded in modern Java development. It taught structure, enforced discipline, and delivered stability at scale.

Remembering why we liked Struts is not nostalgia for outdated tools. It is appreciation for solid engineering foundations that still matter.

Sometimes, respecting where we came from helps us build better systems going forward. And that is why, even today, I still like the Struts framework.