When should I use html's <form> and when spring's <form:form> in Spring MVC web app?

Question

I am wondering is it good practice to write all forms in spring tags or can I mix spring form tags with html form tags?

Answer 1

Use Spring forms when you need functionality provided by them:

• binding to objects
• configurable field formatting
• redisplay of values on errors
• binding of error messages

For simple forms (such as a simple search box on each page) you usually don't need these features - therefore you can use simple HTML forms for them.

Answer 2

Springs form:form tag is supposed to be used with whenever you have a formbacking object you wish to bind to the form (a model object delivered to your view).

There are no additional benefits of using the tag in a regular form with no backing object.