Spring's Resource interface is meant to be a more capable interface for abstracting access to low-level resources.

public interface Resource extends InputStreamSource {

    boolean exists();

    boolean isOpen();

    URL getURL() throws IOException;

    File getFile() throws IOException;

    Resource createRelative(String relativePath) throws IOException;

    String getFilename();

    String getDescription();
}

public interface InputStreamSource {

    InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException;
}

Some of the most important methods from the Resource interface are:

Other methods allow you to obtain an actual URL or File object representing the resource (if the underlying implementation is compatible, and supports that functionality).

The Resource abstraction is used extensively in Spring itself, as an argument type in many method signatures when a resource is needed. Other methods in some Spring APIs (such as the constructors to various ApplicationContext implementations), take a String which in unadorned or simple form is used to create a Resource appropriate to that context implementation, or via special prefixes on the String path, allow the caller to specify that a specific Resource implementation must be created and used.

While the Resource interface is used a lot with Spring and by Spring, it's actually very useful to use as a general utility class by itself in your own code, for access to resources, even when your code doesn't know or care about any other parts of Spring. While this couples your code to Spring, it really only couples it to this small set of utility classes, which are serving as a more capable replacement for URL, and can be considered equivalent to any other library you would use for this purpose.

It is important to note that the Resource abstraction does not replace functionality: it wraps it where possible. For example, a UrlResource wraps a URL, and uses the wrapped URL to do its work.