By default, HttpClient participates in the global Reactor Netty resources held in reactor.netty.http.HttpResources , including event loop threads and a connection pool. This is the recommended mode, since fixed, shared resources are preferred for event loop concurrency. In this mode global resources remain active until the process exits.

If the server is timed with the process, there is typically no need for an explicit shutdown. However, if the server can start or stop in-process (for example, a Spring MVC application deployed as a WAR), you can declare a Spring-managed bean of type ReactorResourceFactory with globalResources=true (the default) to ensure that the Reactor Netty global resources are shut down when the Spring ApplicationContext is closed, as the following example shows:

@Bean
public ReactorResourceFactory reactorResourceFactory() {
	return new ReactorResourceFactory();
You can also choose not to participate in the global Reactor Netty resources. However,
in this mode, the burden is on you to ensure that all Reactor Netty client and server
instances use shared resources, as the following example shows:
@Bean
public ReactorResourceFactory resourceFactory() {
	ReactorResourceFactory factory = new ReactorResourceFactory();
	factory.setUseGlobalResources(false); (1)
	return factory;
@Bean
public WebClient webClient() {
	Function<HttpClient, HttpClient> mapper = client -> {
		// Further customizations...
	ClientHttpConnector connector =
			new ReactorClientHttpConnector(resourceFactory(), mapper); (2)
	return WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build(); (3)
@Bean
fun resourceFactory() = ReactorResourceFactory().apply {
	isUseGlobalResources = false (1)
@Bean
fun webClient(): WebClient {
	val mapper: (HttpClient) -> HttpClient = {
		// Further customizations...
	val connector = ReactorClientHttpConnector(resourceFactory(), mapper) (2)
	return WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build() (3)
HttpClient httpClient = HttpClient.create()
		.option(ChannelOption.CONNECT_TIMEOUT_MILLIS, 10000);
WebClient webClient = WebClient.builder()
		.clientConnector(new ReactorClientHttpConnector(httpClient))
		.build();

val httpClient = HttpClient.create()
		.option(ChannelOption.CONNECT_TIMEOUT_MILLIS, 10000);
val webClient = WebClient.builder()
		.clientConnector(ReactorClientHttpConnector(httpClient))
		.build();

import io.netty.handler.timeout.ReadTimeoutHandler;
import io.netty.handler.timeout.WriteTimeoutHandler;
HttpClient httpClient = HttpClient.create()
		.doOnConnected(conn -> conn
				.addHandlerLast(new ReadTimeoutHandler(10))
				.addHandlerLast(new WriteTimeoutHandler(10)));
// Create WebClient...
import io.netty.handler.timeout.ReadTimeoutHandler
import io.netty.handler.timeout.WriteTimeoutHandler
val httpClient = HttpClient.create()
		.doOnConnected { conn -> conn
				.addHandlerLast(ReadTimeoutHandler(10))
				.addHandlerLast(WriteTimeoutHandler(10))
// Create WebClient...
		.uri("https://example.org/path")
		.httpRequest(httpRequest -> {
			HttpClientRequest reactorRequest = httpRequest.getNativeRequest();
			reactorRequest.responseTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(2));
		.retrieve()
		.bodyToMono(String.class);

WebClient.create().get()
		.uri("https://example.org/path")
		.httpRequest { httpRequest: ClientHttpRequest ->
			val reactorRequest = httpRequest.getNativeRequest<HttpClientRequest>()
			reactorRequest.responseTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(2))
		.retrieve()
		.bodyToMono(String::class.java)

HttpClient httpClient = HttpClient.newBuilder()
    .followRedirects(Redirect.NORMAL)
    .connectTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(20))
    .build();
ClientHttpConnector connector =
        new JdkClientHttpConnector(httpClient, new DefaultDataBufferFactory());
WebClient webClient = WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build();

val httpClient = HttpClient.newBuilder()
    .followRedirects(Redirect.NORMAL)
    .connectTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(20))
    .build()
val connector = JdkClientHttpConnector(httpClient, DefaultDataBufferFactory())
val webClient = WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build()

HttpAsyncClientBuilder clientBuilder = HttpAsyncClients.custom();
clientBuilder.setDefaultRequestConfig(...);
CloseableHttpAsyncClient client = clientBuilder.build();
ClientHttpConnector connector = new HttpComponentsClientHttpConnector(client);
WebClient webClient = WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build();