14/02/2025
New Relic: Developers swiftly embracing newer Java releases
According to New Relic’s fourth annual State of the Java Ecosystem report released today, Java remains one of the most popular languages among developers nearly three decades on due to its “scalability and portability, allowing users to run on any device with a Java virtual machine.”
The report, based on data from hundreds of thousands of applications, provides insights into how developers are utilising Java and which versions are gaining traction. Two key findings highlight the accelerating adoption of recent releases:
“Java 21 sees higher adoption than Java 17: Following the release of Java 21 in September 2023, the report found that the adoption rate for the latest Java LTS version was 287% higher in the first six months after release than its previous LTS counterpart, Java 17.”
“Java 17 overtakes Java 11 as the most-used LTS version: The Java 17 growth rate exploded to a nearly 300% year-over-year (YoY) increase, with over 35% of applications using Java 17 in production this year compared to 9% in 2023. To put this growth into perspective, it took years for Java 11 to reach a similar growth rate.”
This rapid migration to newer versions can likely be attributed to the improvements in “stability, security, and performance” that developers value, according to the report. Oracle, the steward of Java, releases updates every six months with long-term support (LTS) versions arriving every two years.
The report also shed light on trends among Java distributions and complementary tools:
