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Yes Camel can run standalone or in any container. Running Standalone is as simple just to create a CamelContext, add routes and start it. If you don't want to write your own java main, you could use the one from camel-spring (http://camel.apache.org/maven/current/camel-spring/apidocs/) also used by the Camel Maven Plugin.
The starting guide is a good place to start:
Getting startedStarted
And the concrete walk through a plain old java main example:
Walk through an exampleExample
The FAQ have some more details.:
Faq
And if you use Maven for your projects Camel has maven tools to boot up in standalone mode and quickly run you Camel application:
Camel maven pluginMaven Plugin
And check this Cookbook example: Running Camel standalone and have it keep running
This is how you can run the Examples that is included in the Camel distribution.
In Camel 1.4 we will also have ANT build.xml files to quickly start the examples standalone.