The basic approach is similar: it is possible to specify transaction behavior (or lack of it) down to individual method level. It is possible to make a setRollbackOnly() call within a transaction context if necessary. The differences are:
Unlike EJB CMT, which is tied to JTA, the Spring Framework's declarative transaction management works in any environment. It can work with JDBC, JDO, Hibernate or other transactions under the covers, with configuration changes only.
The Spring Framework enables declarative transaction management to be applied to any class, not merely special classes such as EJBs.
The Spring Framework offers declarative rollback rules: this is a feature with no EJB equivalent. Both programmatic and declarative support for rollback rules is provided.
The Spring Framework gives you an opportunity to customize transactional behavior, using AOP. With EJB CMT, you have no way to influence the container's transaction management other than setRollbackOnly().
The Spring Framework does not support propagation of transaction contexts across remote calls, as do high-end application servers.
