Play is probably fine if you use Scala, the Java side is painful. I've worked with Play (Java version) for 3 years and we're moving to Spring Boot now, it's much simpler and stable (from a feature and framework perspective).

The funny thing I see on the springboot quickstart page:

Absolutely no code generation and no requirement for XML configuration

And the very next thing is a maven xml config.

It's not a requirement to use Maven, so their statement is correct even in this extended sense. There's Gradle after all.

Yes it’s just an ironic presentation.

By no XML, they mean that you don't have to do any configuration in xml files. You can declare everything as a bean.

Example: // enabling ETAGS

    @Bean
    public Filter etagFilter() {
        return new ShallowEtagHeaderFilter();
    }

There is also the option to do many things in a yml file like you are used to from Rails.