**Spring Framework** is a comprehensive framework for Java that provides extensive infrastructure enabling the development of Java applications from start to finish. It is designed with ease of use in mind and is the most popular framework for Java in the world.

Spring Framework provides a range of modules that help developers create various types of applications—from simple web applications to advanced, distributed systems for large organizations. These modules include Spring Core, Spring MVC, Spring Security, Spring Data, Spring Cloud, and others.

A key aspect of Spring is its programming model based on Inversion of Control (IoC) and Dependency Injection (DI). In practice, this means that the developer does not have to worry about creating and managing dependencies between different parts of the application; Spring automatically ensures that everything works correctly together.

Spring Framework also offers support for enterprise programming aspects such as transactions, session management, asynchronous tasks, unit and integration testing, and integration with other popular technologies like Hibernate, JPA, JDBC, and many others.

All of this makes Spring Framework an invaluable tool for any Java developer. It promotes good practices, ensures highly scalable and efficient applications, and makes the development of such applications easier and more enjoyable.

The Spring Framework is a Java platform that provides comprehensive infrastructure support for Java applications.

It is one of the most popular frameworks for enterprise applications in Java, offering a range of features. Here are a few of them:

**1. Dependency Injection/Inversion of Control (IoC):** The Spring Framework provides support for Dependency Injection, which helps to relieve developers from the burden of creating, managing, and configuring objects. Instead, developers can focus on creating functionality.

**2. Spring MVC:** The Spring Framework provides Spring MVC, a framework for creating web applications. Spring MVC allows for the creation of scalable and efficient web applications.

**3. Transaction Management:** The Spring Framework offers support for transaction management, enabling the execution of multiple operations within a single transaction.

**4. Spring AOP:** The Spring Framework provides support for Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), allowing for more modular code by separating concerns.

**5. Spring Security:** The Spring Framework offers support for ensuring the security of web applications.

**6. Spring Testing:** The Spring Framework provides support for unit and integration testing, allowing for easy test configuration.

All these features can be configured and customized by the developer based on the application's requirements. The framework is also compatible with other Java technologies, allowing for a more complex and tailored configuration.

Spring Framework is a popular and widely used environment for building Java applications. It provides developers with a set of tools to create flexible, portable applications. Spring Framework supports various aspects of software development, such as transaction management, data access, testing, web services, and many others.

On the other hand, Spring Boot is a project built on top of the Spring Framework. Its main goal is to simplify the creation of Spring-based applications through automatic configuration. Spring Boot automatically configures the Spring application based on the added project dependencies. In the older version of Spring, we had to manually add and configure dependencies, which was time-consuming and complex. Spring Boot solves this.

The main differences between Spring Framework and Spring Boot are:

1. Configuration: Spring Framework requires manual configuration, whereas Spring Boot provides automatic configuration.
2. Creating self-contained applications: Spring Boot applications can be run directly from the command line, which is not possible with the standard Spring Framework.
3. Dependency management: Spring Boot provides starters that simplify dependency management, which is not available in the Spring Framework.
4. Application monitoring: Spring Boot offers tools for monitoring applications and collecting statistics, which the Spring Framework does not offer.

Spring IoC (Inversion of Control) Container is the main component in the Spring ecosystem responsible for creating, configuring, and managing the lifecycle of Spring application objects.

The word "control" refers to the control over the creation and management of objects. In a typical scenario, the developer registers objects and manages their lifecycle. But in the case of Spring IoC, especially when using annotations such as @Autowired, @Service, or @Controller, the control over object creation is taken over by the Spring IoC container.

There are two primary types of Spring IoC Container - `BeanFactory` and `ApplicationContext`. `BeanFactory` is the simplest container that provides basic support for DI (Dependency Injection), while `ApplicationContext` is a more advanced container that offers more enterprise-specific features such as internationalization support.

The configuration of the Spring IoC Container can be done using an XML file, Java annotations, or Java code.