Can you take Spring Professional Certification without Training Course? [Yes]

Hello guys, I have a big news to share with you now. Since 5th April 2024, you can take Spring certification without any mandatory training or Spring Pro content. So after a flip flop of making training mandatory, Spring certification is free again. Vmware, the company behind Spring, after acquiring Pivotal has reversed the earlier decision announced on 10th May 2017 by Pivotal, the previous owner of Spring Framework, that "Spring Certification Exams are now available for individual purchase, without enrolling in the course". This was one of the most discouraging changes in the Spring certification program since it's launched 10 years back. The cost of Spring certification was the single, biggest obstacle for many experienced Java and Spring developers to get certified for their Spring framework skills.

 This step from Vmware was really negative step and makes the certification unaffordable to many experienced developers in cost-sensitive countries like India to get certified for their skills, but now, things are better again and you can give Spring Professional certification without any Spring pro content or mandatory training.  

Though, you still need to buy the voucher, that's not free and will cost you around $250 but its much better then spending money on training. 

Earlier, you have to enroll for a 50K training if you have good knowledge of Spring certification and exam objectives, just like Java certification, you can buy the Spring certification voucher @ 250 USD and take the exam online or offline at any test center.

To celebrate the occasion, I am offering 50% discount on my Spring books and courses, just use code friends50 get any of my Spring related books to get 50% discount for next 3 days.

Here are the links:

50% OFF on Grokking the Spring Boot Interview

50% OFF on Spring Certification Practice Questions

And, if you like courses, you can also use code FREESPRINGCERT to get the course for just $9.9, lowest price on Udemy

here is the link - https://www.udemy.com/course/spring-professional-practice-test-questions-vmware-edu-certification/?couponCode=FREESPRINGCERT

Ever since the Spring certification was announced, the training was part of the Spring certification (VMware EDU-1202)  itself until Pivotal removed that criteria on 2017.

 It wasn't possible to take the Spring certification exams like Core Spring or Spring Web without taking the associated training with them. Even though the training was worth of money and still the best resource for preparing for Spring certification, it is very expensive.

The cost of Spring certification in India is more than 50K INR because of the training itself. The same was true for other countries as Spring training costs around 3000 USD in the USA, North America, and other European countries on their respective currencies like 2700 EURO in Germany and other European Union nations and 2300 GBP in the UK.

By the way, if you are new to the Spring framework then I also suggest you join a comprehensive and up-to-date course to learn Spring in depth. If you need recommendations, I highly suggest you take a look at Spring Framework 6: Beginner to Guru, one of the comprehensive and hands-on courses to learn modern Spring.

I have talked to many Spring developers including my colleagues, friends, and readers of my blog and the single biggest reason for not going for Spring certification was the associated training cost. I can understand that because 50K INR is a lot of money to pay from your pocket if you don't have any corporate sponsorship or your company is not paying for certification.

The same is true for Spring developers in the USA and North America, 3000 USD is not a small sum of money for even programmers looking to get certified in the USA.

If you are an experienced Spring programmer and want to take advantage of this excellent opportunity to become a certified Spring developer then you take David Mayer's Online Spring Mock test to first check out how ready you are for the Spring certification exam.

If you can score 80% on this exam then you can straight away go and buy a Spring certification voucher and schedule the exam at the earliest opportunity, but if you score 50% or less then you may need to prepare for a couple of months before you go for Spring certification.

Here is the screenshot of this news from official Spring certification portal

Overview of Spring Professional Certification

Spring is one of the most popular frameworks for developing Java applications. Its Dependency injection feature promoted best practices and made unit testing easier. IT Industry, especially the Java world, recognizes Spring as an important skill for web development. 

Pivotal provides three main Spring certification exams, Spring Professional Certification Exam, Spring Web Application Developer Certification Exam, and Spring Integration Specialist Certification exam.

Spring Professional Certification Exam
This is the most popular Spring certification exam based upon the Core Spring course of Pivotal. If you have been using the Spring framework in your Java application and familiar with key concepts like Spring container, dependency injection, Spring template support then you can give this exam. You can read Spring in Action to prepare for this exam, it covers most of the exam topics.


Spring Web Application Developer Certification Exam
This is the second most popular Spring certification exam which tests your experience and knowledge about the Spring MVC framework like developing web applications and RESTful web services using the Spring MVC framework.


Enterprise Integration Specialist Certification Exam.
This exam is based upon the Enterprise Spring course and covers inter-process communications using Web Services (REST) and Messaging (JMS, AMQP) and then builds on this foundation to cover Spring Integration, Spring Batch, and Spring Cloud Data Flow.

You can either take the Enterprise Spring training to prepare for this exam. The course is based upon the popular book Enterprise Integration Patterns, which you can also read if you are not taking the training.


Pivotal, the company behind the Spring framework, also provide relevant training to prepare you for those exams. The cost of Spring certification in India including training is more than 3000 USD in America and 50,000 INR in India, which may be expensive for many, but, if you can afford or if your company is provided full or partial subsidy then its is the best way to prepare for the exam.

Is spring Professional certification worth it?

Yes, its worth it because when you prepare for Spring certification you will learn spring framework and its different sub frameworks like Spring Boot, Spring Testing, Actuator, Spring Cloud better which will make you better Java and Spring developer. Certification is cherry on top, if you pass the exam and become a certified Spring developer then you will also belong to the exclusive club of Spring developers who are certified and it will elevate your profile and helps in job and career development. 

Spring Certification Resources

Even though Spring certification is there for the last 10 years, because of its high cost and mandatory training there is not a lot of free resources available on the Internet, especially if you compare Spring certification to Oracle Java certification e.g., unlike OCAJP and OCPJP, there is no Spring certification exam guide which covers all the topic for Spring Core Certification or Spring Web Application Developer exam, so you need to prepare from various Spring books.

Here are some of the best books, guides, and mock exams to prepare well for the Spring Core and Spring Web Application Developer certification exam

1. Spring Certification Books and PDF

Here are some of the good books to prepare for Spring certifications like the Professional Spring Developer Exam, Spring Web Application Developer Exam, and Spring Enterprise Integration Specialist Exam.

• Pivotal Certified Professional Spring Developer Exam: A Study Guide
• Spring in Action 4th Edition - Covers Spring 4
• Spring boot in Action

2. Spring Certification Resources, Mock Exams, and Dumps

Here are some of the free mock exams and pdf dumps to prepare for Spring certifications e.g. Professional Spring Developer Exam, Spring Web Application Developer Exam, and Spring Enterprise Integration Specialist Exam. You can get an idea about what kind of questions are asked and the level of knowledge you will need to do well in the exam.

• Spring Framework 6: Beginner to Guru
• Java Spring Framework 4 and Spring Certification
• David Mayer's Spring Certification dumps
• Java & Moie's Core Spring 4.2 Certification Exam PDF
• Official Spring Certification Page
• Spring announcement - Certification without training
• My 250+ Spring Certification Practice Questions

That's all about whether you can Spring certification without a course or not. Now that, Pivotal has announced that Spring certification will be available without mandatory training, it opens a door for thousands of Spring developers across the world, who wanted to become a certified Spring developer but couldn't afford the training cost, especially in a country like India, where the cost of Spring certification was the single most important reason of not getting certified.

Now that obstacle is out-of-the-way, I expect more and more experienced Spring developers will go for various Spring certifications like Core Spring, Spring Web, or Spring Boot, which will eventually improve their knowledge. IT Industry will also benefit from the improved quality of Spring developers.

All the best for your Spring certification exam. 

Update: It seems Vmware have reversed this decision and now its mandatory for you to take Spring framework training before you can sit on the certification. This will again increase the cost of certification and probably make it unaffordable for many Java developers. I am checking further on this and I will update the article accordingly.