Modern Spring is quite nice, and after having tried Play, I go back to Spring MVC, but use Spring-Boot with Jetty was the embedded container.
Its much like Dropwizard, but better integrated with Spring if that is what you are used to or like.
No XML, and I can produce a usable web API with a minimal amount of boiler plate (its all wrapped up in Spring boot, much like Play wraps up a lot of stuff for you).
Yes, Spring Boot is pretty cool. Not a bit of xml in sight, unless you want it, of course. And you have the choice of deploying with an embedded Tomcat or as a more traditional war.
I think a lot of "big Java" haters haven't looked at Spring or JEE (which has seen similar massive improvements) in the last several years.
Its much like Dropwizard, but better integrated with Spring if that is what you are used to or like.
No XML, and I can produce a usable web API with a minimal amount of boiler plate (its all wrapped up in Spring boot, much like Play wraps up a lot of stuff for you).