Generic caching is used if the context defines at least one org.springframework.cache.Cache bean. A CacheManager wrapping all beans of that type is created.

JCache is bootstrapped through the presence of a javax.cache.spi.CachingProvider on the classpath (that is, a JSR-107 compliant caching library exists on the classpath), and the JCacheCacheManager is provided by the spring-boot-starter-cache “Starter”. Various compliant libraries are available, and Spring Boot provides dependency management for Ehcache 3, Hazelcast, and Infinispan. Any other compliant library can be added as well.

It might happen that more than one provider is present, in which case the provider must be explicitly specified. Even if the JSR-107 standard does not enforce a standardized way to define the location of the configuration file, Spring Boot does its best to accommodate setting a cache with implementation details, as shown in the following example:

   # Only necessary if more than one provider is present
spring.cache.jcache.provider=com.acme.MyCachingProvider
spring.cache.jcache.config=classpath:acme.xml

	Note
	When a cache library offers both a native implementation and JSR-107 support, Spring Boot prefers the JSR-107 support, so that the same features are available if you switch to a different JSR-107 implementation.

	Tip
	Spring Boot has general support for Hazelcast. If a single HazelcastInstance is available, it is automatically reused for the CacheManager as well, unless the spring.cache.jcache.config property is specified.

There are two ways to customize the underlying javax.cache.cacheManager:

	Tip
	If a standard javax.cache.CacheManager bean is defined, it is wrapped automatically in an org.springframework.cache.CacheManager implementation that the abstraction expects. No further customization is applied to it.

EhCache 2.x is used if a file named ehcache.xml can be found at the root of the classpath. If EhCache 2.x is found, the EhCacheCacheManager provided by the spring-boot-starter-cache “Starter” is used to bootstrap the cache manager. An alternate configuration file can be provided as well, as shown in the following example:

spring.cache.ehcache.config=classpath:config/another-config.xml

Spring Boot has general support for Hazelcast. If a HazelcastInstance has been auto-configured, it is automatically wrapped in a CacheManager.

Infinispan has no default configuration file location, so it must be specified explicitly. Otherwise, the default bootstrap is used.

spring.cache.infinispan.config=infinispan.xml

Caches can be created on startup by setting the spring.cache.cache-names property. If a custom ConfigurationBuilder bean is defined, it is used to customize the caches.

	Note
	The support of Infinispan in Spring Boot is restricted to the embedded mode and is quite basic. If you want more options, you should use the official Infinispan Spring Boot starter instead. See Infinispan’s documentation for more details.

If the Couchbase Java client and the couchbase-spring-cache implementation are available and Couchbase is configured, a CouchbaseCacheManager is auto-configured. It is also possible to create additional caches on startup by setting the spring.cache.cache-names property. These caches operate on the Bucket that was auto-configured. You can also create additional caches on another Bucket by using the customizer. Assume you need two caches (cache1 and cache2) on the "main" Bucket and one (cache3) cache with a custom time to live of 2 seconds on the “another” Bucket. You can create the first two caches through configuration, as follows:

spring.cache.cache-names=cache1,cache2

Then you can define a @Configuration class to configure the extra Bucket and the cache3 cache, as follows:

@Configuration
public class CouchbaseCacheConfiguration {

	private final Cluster cluster;

	public CouchbaseCacheConfiguration(Cluster cluster) {
		this.cluster = cluster;
	}

	@Bean
	public Bucket anotherBucket() {
		return this.cluster.openBucket("another", "secret");
	}

	@Bean
	public CacheManagerCustomizer<CouchbaseCacheManager> cacheManagerCustomizer() {
		return c -> {
			c.prepareCache("cache3", CacheBuilder.newInstance(anotherBucket())
					.withExpiration(2));
		};
	}

}

This sample configuration reuses the Cluster that was created through auto-configuration.

If Redis is available and configured, a RedisCacheManager is auto-configured. It is possible to create additional caches on startup by setting the spring.cache.cache-names property and cache defaults can be configured by using spring.cache.redis.* properties. For instance, the following configuration creates cache1 and cache2 caches with a time to live of 10 minutes:

spring.cache.cache-names=cache1,cache2
spring.cache.redis.time-to-live=600000

	Note
	By default, a key prefix is added so that, if two separate caches use the same key, Redis does not have overlapping keys and cannot return invalid values. We strongly recommend keeping this setting enabled if you create your own RedisCacheManager.

	Tip
	You can take full control of the configuration by adding a RedisCacheConfiguration @Bean of your own. This can be useful if you’re looking for customizing the serialization strategy.

Caffeine is a Java 8 rewrite of Guava’s cache that supersedes support for Guava. If Caffeine is present, a CaffeineCacheManager (provided by the spring-boot-starter-cache “Starter”) is auto-configured. Caches can be created on startup by setting the spring.cache.cache-names property and can be customized by one of the following (in the indicated order):

For instance, the following configuration creates cache1 and cache2 caches with a maximum size of 500 and a time to live of 10 minutes

spring.cache.cache-names=cache1,cache2
spring.cache.caffeine.spec=maximumSize=500,expireAfterAccess=600s

If a com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.CacheLoader bean is defined, it is automatically associated to the CaffeineCacheManager. Since the CacheLoader is going to be associated with all caches managed by the cache manager, it must be defined as CacheLoader<Object, Object>. The auto-configuration ignores any other generic type.

If none of the other providers can be found, a simple implementation using a ConcurrentHashMap as the cache store is configured. This is the default if no caching library is present in your application. By default, caches are created as needed, but you can restrict the list of available caches by setting the cache-names property. For instance, if you want only cache1 and cache2 caches, set the cache-names property as follows:

spring.cache.cache-names=cache1,cache2

If you do so and your application uses a cache not listed, then it fails at runtime when the cache is needed, but not on startup. This is similar to the way the "real" cache providers behave if you use an undeclared cache.

When @EnableCaching is present in your configuration, a suitable cache configuration is expected as well. If you need to disable caching altogether in certain environments, force the cache type to none to use a no-op implementation, as shown in the following example:

spring.cache.type=none