Difference Between @Controller and @Service Annotation in Spring
Last Updated :
23 Jul, 2025
Spring Annotations are a form of metadata that provides data about a program. Annotations are used to provide supplemental information about a program. It does not have a direct effect on the operation of the code they annotate. It does not change the action of the compiled program.
Spring @Controller Annotation
Spring @Controller annotation is a specialization of @Component annotation. The @Controller annotation indicates that a particular class serves the role of a controller. Spring Controller annotation is typically used in combination with annotated handler methods based on the @RequestMapping annotation. It can be applied to classes only. It’s used to mark a class as a web request handler. It’s mostly used with Spring MVC applications. This annotation acts as a stereotype for the annotated class, indicating its role. The dispatcher scans such annotated classes for mapped methods and detects @RequestMapping annotations.
Implementation: Project
Step 1: Create a Simple Spring Boot Project
Refer to this article Create and Setup Spring Boot Project in Eclipse IDE and create a simple spring boot project.
Step 2: Add the spring-web dependency in your pom.xml file. Go to the pom.xml file inside your project and add the following spring-web dependency.
XML
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
Step 3: In your project create one package and name the package "controller". In the controller, the package creates a class and name it as DemoController. This is going to be our final project structure.

Java
// Java Program to Illustrate DemoController File
// Importing package in this code module
package com.example.demo.controller;
// Importing required classes
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;
// Annotation
@Controller
// Main class
public class DemoController {
@RequestMapping("/hello")
@ResponseBody
// Method
public String helloGFG()
{
return "Hello GeeksForGeeks";
}
}
We have used the below annotations in our controller layer. Here in this example, the URI path is /hello.
- @Controller: This is used to specify the controller.
- @RequestMapping: This is used to map to the Spring MVC controller method.
- @ResponseBody: Used to bind the HTTP response body with a domain object in the return type.

Step 4: Now, our controller is ready. Let's run our application inside the DemoApplication.java file. There is no need to change anything inside the DemoApplication.java file.
Example
Java
// Java Program to Illustrate DemoApplication File
// Importing package in this code module
package com.example.demo;
// Importing required classes
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
// Annotation
@SpringBootApplication
// Main class
public class DemoApplication {
// Main driver method
public static void main(String[] args)
{
SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
}
}
Output:

Tip: Try Tomcat URL depicted in below media, which is running on http://localhost:8989/hello

Spring @Service Annotation
In an application, the business logic resides within the service layer so we use the @Service Annotation to indicate that a class belongs to that layer. It is also a specialization of @Component Annotation like the @Repository Annotation. One most important thing about the @Service Annotation is it can be applied only to classes. It is used to mark the class as a service provider. So overall @Service annotation is used with classes that provide some business functionalities. Spring context will autodetect these classes when annotation-based configuration and classpath scanning is used.
Example: Project
Step 1: Create a Simple Spring Boot Project.
tip: Do refer to this article prior to adhering forward on how to create and setup Spring Boot Project in Eclipse IDE and create a simple spring boot project.
Step 2: Add the spring-context dependency in your pom.xml file. Go to the pom.xml file inside your project and add the following spring-context dependency.
File: pom.xml
XML
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
<version>5.3.13</version>
</dependency>
Step 3: In your project create one package and name the package as "service". In the service, the package creates a class and name it "MyServiceClass".
File: MyServiceClass
Java
// Java Program to Illustrate MyServiceClass
// Importing package module to code module
package com.example.demo.service;
// Importing required classes
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
// Annotation
@Service
// Class
public class MyServiceClass {
// Method
// To compute factorial
public int factorial(int n)
{
// Base case
if (n == 0)
return 1;
// Returning factorial of input number
return n * factorial(n - 1);
}
}
Code explanation:
From the above code, we can easily perceive that it’s a simple java class that provides functionalities to calculate the factorial of a number. So we can call it a service provider. We have annotated it with @Service annotation so that spring-context can autodetect it and we can get its instance from the context.
Step 4: Spring Repository Test
So now our Spring Repository is ready, let’s test it out. Go to the DemoApplication.java file and refer to the below code.
File: DemoApplication.java
Java
// Java Program to Illustrate DemoApplication
// Importing package module to code fragment
package com.example.demo;
// Importing required classes
import com.example.demo.service.MyServiceClass;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext;
// Annotation
@SpringBootApplication
// Main class
public class DemoApplication {
// Main driver method
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// Creating context of
// AnnotationConfigApplicationContext class
AnnotationConfigApplicationContext context
= new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();
context.scan("com.example.demo");
context.refresh();
MyServiceClass myServiceClass
= context.getBean(MyServiceClass.class);
// Testing the factorial method
int factorialOf5 = myServiceClass.factorial(5);
System.out.println("Factorial of 5 is: "
+ factorialOf5);
// Closing the spring context
// using close() method
context.close();
}
}
Output:

Lastly, let us do discuss the differences between @Controller annotation and @Service annotation.
@Controller Annotation
| @Service Annotation
|
---|
@Controller annotation indicates that a particular class serves the role of a controller. | @Service annotation is used with classes that provide some business functionalities. |
@Controller annotation is a specialization of @Component annotation. | @Service Annotation is also a specialization of @Component Annotation. |
It can be applied to classes only. | It can be applied to classes only. |
It’s used to mark a class as a web request handler. | It is used to mark the class as a service provider. |
It is a stereotype for the presentation layer (spring-MVC). | It is a stereotype for the service layer. |
We cannot switch this annotation with any other like @Service or @Repository. | Switch can be possible. |
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