ApplicationContext Features

ApplicationContext provides basic features in addition to enterprise-specific functionalities which are as follows:

• Publishing events to registered listeners by resolving property files.
• Methods for accessing application components.
• Supports Internationalization.
• Loading File resources in a generic fashion.

Note: It is because of these additional features, developers prefer to use ApplicationContext over BeanFactory.  Spring – BeanFactory : It provides basic functionalities and is recommended for use for lightweight applications like mobile and applets.

ApplicationContext belongs to the Spring framework. Spring IoC container is responsible for instantiating, wiring, configuring, and managing the entire life cycle of beans or objects. BeanFactory and ApplicationContext represent the Spring IoC Containers. ApplicationContext is the sub-interface of BeanFactory. It is used when we are creating an enterprise-level application or web application. ApplicationContext is the superset of BeanFactory, whatever features provided by BeanFactory are also provided by ApplicationContext.