I’m currently developing a web application in Java. To do so, I’m using the Play! Framework, which is a
High Velocity Web Framework For Java and Scala
This framework allows you to quickly build web applications with Java (and Scala, but I’m sticking to Java for now).
You can find the tutorial for a todo list application here. This tutorial allows you to create a very basic application and deploy it in less than an hour (excluding the framework and tools download and installation time).
The application I’m working on is a Kanban board, similar to Trello, that you can host on your personal server, or, in my case, on Heroku.
Heroku is a cloud application platform, based on Amazon AWS, which allows you to deploy and host applications with git. They offer a free hosting option, which includes 1 dyno (their own unit of computing power), and a PostGreSQL database that can contain 10k rows. This should be enough for you to test your application, and a free option is always welcome. You can then pay for additional dynos, DB options, and add-ons (data stores, logging, emails,…). See the pricing details here.
My application is still in development. I’m trying to learn how to use Play!, and also playing with the UI. You can find it here.