Checkstyle vs. Spotless: The Ultimate Showdown – Which One Will Save Your Sanity?

 

Introduction

👋 Picture this: You’ve spent hours working on a feature. You push your code, feeling like a rockstar. Then – BAM! 🚨 Your CI/CD pipeline fails. Why? Because you forgot a space after a comma.

Or maybe your curly brace is on the wrong line. Or you used tabs instead of spaces. The horror! 😱

At this point, you have two choices:

1. Spend another 30 minutes fixing tiny formatting errors while silently questioning your career choices.
2. Use a tool that fixes these problems automatically, so you never have to think about them again.

Enter Checkstyle vs. Spotless – the ultimate battle between code enforcer and code fixer. Which one should you use? And if you're stuck with Checkstyle, how can you escape and move to Spotless? Let’s dive in.

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🥊 Checkstyle vs. Spotless: What’s the Difference?

Imagine you’re a chef 🍳 in a high-end restaurant:

• Checkstyle is the angry head chef 👨‍🍳 screaming at you for chopping onions the wrong way. He won’t fix it for you, but he’ll make sure you know you messed up.
• Spotless is the friendly sous-chef 🤝 who quietly steps in and fixes your sloppy cuts before the dish goes out.

Both serve a purpose, but they work very differently:

Feature	Checkstyle 🛑 (The Code Inspector)	Spotless ✅ (The Code Fixer)
What It Does	Reports coding violations	Automatically fixes formatting issues
Configuration	Uses checkstyle.xml to define strict rules	Uses formatters like Google Java Format, Prettier, Eclipse
Does It Fix Code?	❌ No, just complains	✅ Yes, auto-fixes mistakes
Best For	Teams that want strict linting	Developers who want pain-free formatting

🔥 So Which One Should You Use?

• Checkstyle if you love suffering and enjoy fixing the same formatting issues over and over.
• Spotless if you want a happier, stress-free coding experience where everything is automatically formatted.
• Both! Some teams use Spotless for formatting and Checkstyle for rule enforcement that Spotless doesn’t cover.

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🤔 Why Should You Migrate from Checkstyle to Spotless?

Let me tell you a real-life developer horror story.

👩‍💻 Emma, a junior dev, joins a team that uses Checkstyle. Excitedly, she writes her first piece of code. She submits a pull request, and suddenly...

🚨 “Checkstyle violations detected!” 🚨

She scrolls through 500+ errors:

• "Method must be ordered alphabetically." 🤯
• "Expected 1 blank line, found 2." 😵
• "Line is too long (81 characters instead of 80)." 😡

After an entire afternoon of fixing spaces, brackets, and commas, she finally gets it to pass.

Then she discovers Spotless. She runs one command, and BOOM – all formatting issues are gone in seconds. 🎉

Don’t be like early Emma. Be like Smart Emma™. Switch to Spotless.

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🛠️ How to Migrate from Checkstyle to Spotless in a Maven Project

Step 1: Yeet Checkstyle Out of Your pom.xml

Find the Checkstyle plugin in your pom.xml and delete it:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.1.2</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>validate</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>check</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <configLocation>checkstyle.xml</configLocation>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

💀 RIP, Checkstyle. You won’t be missed.

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Step 2: Add Spotless to pom.xml

Now, add this beautiful, sanity-saving plugin under <plugins>:

<plugin>
    <groupId>com.diffplug.spotless</groupId>
    <artifactId>spotless-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.44.0</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>apply</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <java>
            <googleJavaFormat/>
        </java>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

🚀 This does two magical things:

1. It automatically formats your Java code to Google's style guide.
2. It saves you hours of manual formatting pain.

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Step 3: Run Spotless and Watch the Magic Happen

To instantly fix all formatting issues, run:

mvn spotless:apply

And just like that... 💥

🎉 Your code is perfectly formatted, no manual effort required! 🎉

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🏆 The Final Verdict: Checkstyle vs. Spotless

• If you love pain, use Checkstyle.
• If you love productivity, use Spotless.
• If your team has trust issues and wants a mix of both, go ahead and use both.

At the end of the day, coding should be fun, not frustrating. The less time you spend fighting formatting issues, the more time you have for actual problem-solving.

👉 Are you using Checkstyle or Spotless? Have a formatting horror story? Drop a comment below! Let’s hear it. 🎤👇

🔗 Related Reads:

• Maven Best Practices for Java Projects
• How to Use Google Java Format with Spotless
• Why You Should Automate Code Formatting

💡 If you found this helpful, share it with your team so they don’t waste their lives fixing formatting issues. 🚀