Baeldung Pro – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
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Baeldung Pro comes with both absolutely No-Ads as well as finally with Dark Mode, for a clean learning experience:

>> Explore a clean Baeldung

Once the early-adopter seats are all used, the price will go up and stay at $33/year.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat= Spring Boot)
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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, you can get started over on the documentation page.

And, you can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (cat=Spring)
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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (tag=Microservices)
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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

eBook – Guide Spring Cloud – NPI EA (cat=Spring Cloud)
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Let's get started with a Microservice Architecture with Spring Cloud:

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eBook – Mockito – NPI EA (tag = Mockito)
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Mocking is an essential part of unit testing, and the Mockito library makes it easy to write clean and intuitive unit tests for your Java code.

Get started with mocking and improve your application tests using our Mockito guide:

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eBook – Java Concurrency – NPI EA (cat=Java Concurrency)
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Handling concurrency in an application can be a tricky process with many potential pitfalls. A solid grasp of the fundamentals will go a long way to help minimize these issues.

Get started with understanding multi-threaded applications with our Java Concurrency guide:

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eBook – Reactive – NPI EA (cat=Reactive)
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Spring 5 added support for reactive programming with the Spring WebFlux module, which has been improved upon ever since. Get started with the Reactor project basics and reactive programming in Spring Boot:

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eBook – Java Streams – NPI EA (cat=Java Streams)
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Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.

To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:

>> Join Pro and download the eBook

eBook – Jackson – NPI EA (cat=Jackson)
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Do JSON right with Jackson

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eBook – HTTP Client – NPI EA (cat=Http Client-Side)
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Get the most out of the Apache HTTP Client

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eBook – Maven – NPI EA (cat = Maven)
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Get Started with Apache Maven:

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eBook – Persistence – NPI EA (cat=Persistence)
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Working on getting your persistence layer right with Spring?

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eBook – RwS – NPI EA (cat=Spring MVC)
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Building a REST API with Spring?

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Course – LS – NPI EA (cat=Jackson)
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Get started with Spring and Spring Boot, through the Learn Spring course:

>> LEARN SPRING
Course – RWSB – NPI EA (cat=REST)
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Explore Spring Boot 3 and Spring 6 in-depth through building a full REST API with the framework:

>> The New “REST With Spring Boot”

Course – LSS – NPI EA (cat=Spring Security)
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Yes, Spring Security can be complex, from the more advanced functionality within the Core to the deep OAuth support in the framework.

I built the security material as two full courses - Core and OAuth, to get practical with these more complex scenarios. We explore when and how to use each feature and code through it on the backing project.

You can explore the course here:

>> Learn Spring Security

Course – All Access – NPI EA (cat= Spring)
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All Access is finally out, with all of my Spring courses. Learn JUnit is out as well, and Learn Maven is coming fast. And, of course, quite a bit more affordable. Finally.

>> GET THE COURSE
Course – LSD – NPI EA (tag=Spring Data JPA)
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Spring Data JPA is a great way to handle the complexity of JPA with the powerful simplicity of Spring Boot.

Get started with Spring Data JPA through the guided reference course:

>> CHECK OUT THE COURSE

Partner – LambdaTest – NPI EA (cat=Testing)
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End-to-end testing is a very useful method to make sure that your application works as intended. This highlights issues in the overall functionality of the software, that the unit and integration test stages may miss.

Playwright is an easy-to-use, but powerful tool that automates end-to-end testing, and supports all modern browsers and platforms.

When coupled with LambdaTest (an AI-powered cloud-based test execution platform) it can be further scaled to run the Playwright scripts in parallel across 3000+ browser and device combinations:

>> Automated End-to-End Testing With Playwright

Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI EA (cat= Baeldung)
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Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

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Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI (cat=Baeldung)
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Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

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1. Overview

In this tutorial, we’ll explore what the @Qualifier annotation can help us with, which problems it solves, and how to use it.

Further reading:

Spring @Primary Annotation

Learn how to use Spring's @Primary annotation to give preference to beans when autowiring

Wiring in Spring: @Autowired, @Resource and @Inject

This article will compare and contrast the use of annotations related to dependency injection, namely the @Resource, @Inject, and @Autowired annotations.

@Lookup Annotation in Spring

Learn how to effectively use the @Lookup annotation in Spring for procedural injection.

We’ll also explain how it’s different from the @Primary annotation, and from autowiring by name.

2. Autowire Need for Disambiguation

The @Autowired annotation is a great way of making the need to inject a dependency in Spring explicit. Although it’s useful, there are use cases for which this annotation alone isn’t enough for Spring to understand which bean to inject.

By default, Spring resolves autowired entries by type.

If more than one bean of the same type is available in the container, the framework will throw NoUniqueBeanDefinitionException, indicating that more than one bean is available for autowiring.

Let’s imagine a situation in which two possible candidates exist for Spring to inject as bean collaborators in a given instance:

@Component("fooFormatter")
public class FooFormatter implements Formatter {
 
    public String format() {
        return "foo";
    }
}

@Component("barFormatter")
public class BarFormatter implements Formatter {
 
    public String format() {
        return "bar";
    }
}

@Component
public class FooService {
     
    @Autowired
    private Formatter formatter;
}

If we try to load FooService into our context, the Spring framework will throw a NoUniqueBeanDefinitionException. This is because Spring doesn’t know which bean to inject. To avoid this problem, there are several solutions; the @Qualifier annotation is one of them.

3. @Qualifier Annotation

By using the @Qualifier annotation, we can eliminate the issue of which bean needs to be injected.

Let’s revisit our previous example to see how we solve the problem by including the @Qualifier annotation to indicate which bean we want to use:

public class FooService {
     
    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("fooFormatter")
    private Formatter formatter;
}

By including the @Qualifier annotation, together with the name of the specific implementation we want to use, in this example Foo, we can avoid ambiguity when Spring finds multiple beans of the same type.

We need to take into consideration that the qualifier name to be used is the one declared in the @Component annotation.

Note that we could have also used the @Qualifier annotation on the Formatter implementing classes, instead of specifying the names in their @Component annotations, to obtain the same effect:

@Component
@Qualifier("fooFormatter")
public class FooFormatter implements Formatter {
    //...
}

@Component
@Qualifier("barFormatter")
public class BarFormatter implements Formatter {
    //...
}

4. @Qualifier vs @Primary

There’s another annotation called @Primary that we can use to decide which bean to inject when ambiguity is present regarding dependency injection.

This annotation defines a preference when multiple beans of the same type are present. The bean associated with the @Primary annotation will be used unless otherwise indicated.

Let’s see an example:

@Configuration
public class Config {
 
    @Bean
    public Employee johnEmployee() {
        return new Employee("John");
    }
 
    @Bean
    @Primary
    public Employee tonyEmployee() {
        return new Employee("Tony");
    }
}

In this example, both methods return the same Employee type. The bean that Spring will inject is the one returned by the method tonyEmployee. This is because it contains the @Primary annotation. This annotation is useful when we want to specify which bean of a certain type should be injected by default.

If we require the other bean at some injection point, we would need to specifically indicate it. We can do that via the @Qualifier annotation. For instance, we could specify that we want to use the bean returned by the johnEmployee method by using the @Qualifier annotation.

It’s worth noting that if both the @Qualifier and @Primary annotations are present, then the @Qualifier annotation will have precedence. Basically, @Primary defines a default, while @Qualifier is very specific.

Let’s look at another way of using the @Primary annotation, this time using the initial example:

@Component
@Primary
public class FooFormatter implements Formatter {
    //...
}

@Component
public class BarFormatter implements Formatter {
    //...
}

In this case, the @Primary annotation is placed in one of the implementing classes, and will disambiguate the scenario.

5. @Qualifier vs Autowiring by Name

Another way to decide between multiple beans when autowiring, is by using the name of the field to inject. This is the default in case there are no other hints for Spring. Let’s see some code based on our initial example:

public class FooService {
     
    @Autowired
    private Formatter fooFormatter;
}

In this case, Spring will determine that the bean to inject is the FooFormatter one, since the field name is matched to the value that we used in the @Component annotation for that bean.

6. Conclusion

In this article, we described the scenarios where we need to disambiguate which beans to inject. In particular, we examined the @Qualifier annotation, and compared it with other similar ways of determining which beans need to be used.

The code backing this article is available on GitHub. Once you're logged in as a Baeldung Pro Member, start learning and coding on the project.
Baeldung Pro – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
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Baeldung Pro comes with both absolutely No-Ads as well as finally with Dark Mode, for a clean learning experience:

>> Explore a clean Baeldung

Once the early-adopter seats are all used, the price will go up and stay at $33/year.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat = Spring Boot)
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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (cat = Spring)
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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (tag = Microservices)
announcement - icon

Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

eBook – HTTP Client – NPI EA (cat=HTTP Client-Side)
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The Apache HTTP Client is a very robust library, suitable for both simple and advanced use cases when testing HTTP endpoints. Check out our guide covering basic request and response handling, as well as security, cookies, timeouts, and more:

>> Download the eBook

eBook – Java Concurrency – NPI EA (cat=Java Concurrency)
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Handling concurrency in an application can be a tricky process with many potential pitfalls. A solid grasp of the fundamentals will go a long way to help minimize these issues.

Get started with understanding multi-threaded applications with our Java Concurrency guide:

>> Download the eBook

eBook – Java Streams – NPI EA (cat=Java Streams)
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Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.

To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:

>> Join Pro and download the eBook

eBook – Persistence – NPI EA (cat=Persistence)
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Working on getting your persistence layer right with Spring?

Explore the eBook

Course – LS – NPI EA (cat=REST)

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Get started with Spring Boot and with core Spring, through the Learn Spring course:

>> CHECK OUT THE COURSE

Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI EA (cat= Baeldung)
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Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

>> EXPLORE ACCESS NOW

Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI (All)
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Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

>> EXPLORE ACCESS NOW

Partner – Microsoft – NPI (cat=Spring)
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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

eBook Jackson – NPI EA – 3 (cat = Jackson)