API Versioning in Spring Boot — A Complete Guide with Code Examples

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APIs evolve — whether it’s adding features, fixing bugs, or restructuring data. But change shouldn’t break your users. That’s where API versioning comes in. This comprehensive guide walks you through why versioning matters, explores four major strategies, and shows you how to implement them in Spring Boot with code samples.

📌 Why You Need API Versioning

As your application grows, your APIs will change. If you update them without a versioning strategy, you risk:

• Breaking existing client applications
• Creating friction for frontend or third-party devs
• Wasting time on emergency patches

With versioning, you can:

✅ Support multiple versions in parallel
✅ Let clients upgrade when they’re ready
✅ Avoid breaking changes altogether

🔁 Common API Versioning Strategies

Spring Boot supports multiple API versioning approaches. Let’s break them down:

1️⃣ URI Path Versioning

Structure:

GET /api/v1/users
GET /api/v2/users