A front controller is defined as a controller which handles all requests for a Web Application. DispatcherServlet (actually a servlet) is the front controller in Spring MVC that intercepts every request and then dispatches/forwards requests to an appropriate controller.

When a web request is sent to a Spring MVC application, dispatcher servlet first receives the request. Then it organizes the different components configured in Spring’s web application context (e.g. actual request handler controller and view resolvers) or annotations present in the controller itself, all needed to handle the request.