• @ResponseBody – binds method return value to web response body, complex types will be converted with usage of HttpMessageConverter

• HttpEntity, ResponseEntity - allows to specify full response with headers and body, ResponseEntity additionally allows you to specify HTTP status code

• HttpHeaders – allows to return response only with headers, without body

• String – allows to return logical name of view to use when rendering response, view will be resolved by ViewResolver, usually used with implicit model through @ModelAttribute parameters or explicit model by declaring Model method parameter

• View – allows to return instance of view, like JstlView, ThymeleafView, FreeMarkerView, usually used with implicit model through @ModelAttribute parameters or explicit model by declaring Model method parameter

• Map, Model – allows you to specify attributes to be added to the implicit model, with the view name implicitly determined through a RequestToViewNameTranslator

• @ModelAttribute – allows you to specify an attribute to be added to the model, with the view name implicitly determined through a RequestToViewNameTranslator

• ModelAndView - view and model attributes to use and, optionally, a response status, view can be specified by logical name or instance of view can be passed, model can be specified as named object or Map

• void – method that returns void can correctly handle request by using ServletResponse or OutputStream as parameter, or @ResponseStatus annotation, if none of previous are used RequestToViewNameTranslator will identify view based on request, void return type can also indicate “no response body” for REST controllers

• DeferredResult<V> - allows to specify result for controller asynchronously from different Thread or as result of some event callback, part of integration with Servlet 3.0 asynchronous request

• Callable<V> - allows to produce return value asynchronously in a Spring MVC managed thread

• ListenableFuture<V>, CompletableFuture<V>, CompletionStage<V > - allows to return set of chained, asynchronous operations, with callbacks and transformations

• ResponseBodyEmitter, SseEmitter – allows to send objects in stream asynchronously, objects will be converted with usage of HttpMessageConverter, can be used with ResponseEntity, both classes have the same goal, however, SseEmitter uses Server-Sent Events standardized with W3C SSE specification

• StreamingResponseBody – allows to write to the response OutputStream asynchronously

• Reactive types – allows to use Reactive types for streaming scenarios, handled by ReactiveAdapterRegistry