Maven is a build and dependency management tool that is used to build, publish, and deploy several projects at once for better project management. It is chiefly used for Java-based projects, helping to download dependencies, which refers to the libraries or JAR files. Maven is written in Java and is used to build projects written in C#, Scala, Ruby, etc. Based on the Project Object Model (POM), this tool has made the lives of Java developers easier while developing reports, checks build and testing automation setups.

In the context of Spring Boot, the Spring Boot Maven Plugin provides Spring Boot support in Apache Maven. It allows you to package executable jar or war archives, run Spring Boot applications, generate build information, and start your Spring Boot application prior to running integration tests. To use the Spring Boot Maven Plugin, you need to include the appropriate XML in the plugins section of your pom.xml.