Dissatisfaction with Oracle Java remains strong

82% express unease over Big Red’s Java cost structure

Azul’s 2025 State of Java Survey & Report shows the commitment to Java, one of the world’s most adopted programming languages, remains strong. Although organisations continue to face unpredictable economic conditions which are constraining IT budgets and placing greater emphasis on cost savings, there is no desire to move away from this technology.

Demand for Java continues to be healthy

Given that Java will be 30 in May 2025, it could be perceived as “legacy”, inferring that IT departments would consider its replacement. However, Java, and its proven capabilities for stability, security and scale, as well as its ongoing innovation, has given Java the credibility to remain the primary backbone of enterprise application and infrastructure environments. Globally, nearly 70% say at least 50% of their applications are either built with or run on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

There is also widespread use of multiple versions of Java. Globally, 52% of respondents to the study say they use more than one version of Java. Although this is down from 2023 (64%), it does raise questions about what versions of Java are being used. Globally, 34% are on Java 17, 33% in the UK. This is concerning given that Oracle ended free support for Java 17 in September 2024 – meaning those organisations have a commercial licence obligation to Oracle. Furthermore, there are still users on legacy versions no longer supported by Oracle altogether, like Java 7, for example, which is still being used globally (13%); UK and France (9%); and Germany (13%). Fortunately, commercial support including regular patches and security fixes are still offered by Azul, an alternative to Oracle Java.

That said, most respondents are paying for some flavour of Java support, which is understandable as Java is used in mission-critical applications. Around the world, 85% think paying for commercial support is worth it, which is up from 66% in 2023 – a figure that is even higher in the UK (88%) and France (89%).

There’s still a proportion who do not pay for Java support – globally (15%), UK (12%), France (11%) and Germany (18%). The top reason for not choosing support is a belief that organisations do not need it – globally (52%), UK (53%), Germany (52%) and France (67%). Hopefully nothing in those organisations’ Java applications break or become vulnerable.

This becomes even more of an issue among those respondents considering a move away from Oracle Java to an OpenJDK distribution, the opensource implementation of the Java platform. Globally, 25% are considering migration without paid support. This grows significantly in Europe – France (51%), UK and Germany (40%). If organisations are not investing in paid support, how will they maintain critical Java applications and infrastructure?

Dissatisfaction with Oracle Java remains strong

Few would be surprised that dissatisfaction with Oracle Java remains unchanged from 2023. Worldwide 82% express unease over “Big Red’s” Java cost structure. In France that figure jumps dramatically (94%) compared to Germany (87%) and UK (83%).

As a result, the number of Oracle Java users considering the switch to another JVM/JDK is gathering pace, with 88% globally considering the move today compared to 72% in 2023. That figure is even higher in Germany (95%) and France (92%), compared with the UK (72%).

The reasons for moving are pretty stark. Worldwide and in the UK, the top reason is that Oracle is too expensive, which also makes it into the top three for Germany. Respondents are also motivated by a strong preference for open source – it is the top reason given in France, and the second globally and in the UK. There is also a variety of grumbles about Oracle’s tactics and support:

• Globally respondents have highlighted Oracle’s sales tactics, which is also the top reason for considering a move in Germany and the number two reason in France
• In the UK there is a complaint that Oracle does not support the versions of Java or configurations users require (e.g. Java 6 and 7)
• In France respondents complain of restrictive Oracle policies

Significant room to improve cloud workloads and developer productivity

Against the economic backdrop and continued dissatisfaction with Oracle, respondents are clearly motivated to drive changes in how their Java applications and infrastructure are run. This is understandable, as a large number of respondents say that more than 50% of their cloud compute costs are from Java workloads – globally (62%); UK (60%); France (59%); Germany (58%).

Concerningly, a significant number of respondents indicated that more than 20% of their cloud compute capacity is unused – globally (71%); UK (68%); France (85%); Germany (74%). To address this concern, respondents are applying a variety of counter measures. Globally, in the UK and Germany, the top approach is to establish internal rules for cloud asset management, but in France the top action is to renegotiate cloud contracts. In the UK, France and Germany there is also an emphasis on leveraging cloud provider tools and best practices. The UK lists utilising a high-performance Java platform as a top three action to reduce cloud costs, while global and German respondents focus on FinOps tactics using dynamic and schedule-based autoscaling.

Around the world, there is also a desire to switch to more efficient compute instances and processors, such as the trend seeing organisations switch away from Intel and AMD to AWS Graviton and ARM processors.

Given the scale of Java usage, respondents highlight the need to focus on developer productivity. 62% worldwide say dead or unused code affects DevOps productivity – figures that are somewhat lower in Europe: UK (54%); France and Germany (58%). One of the key issues referenced by more than a third globally (33%) is that more than 50% of their DevOps teams’ time is wasted on Java-related security vulnerability false positives – UK (27%); France (31%); Germany (38%).

At a time when competing for developer resources is challenging, organisations cannot afford to lose talented staff to burnout or allow them to be lured away to competitors. It is critical they put the right support and tools in place so that teams can devote as much time as possible to producing code rather than dealing with housekeeping.

Stay vigilant

The study also flags that optimisation and productivity could be affected by security vulnerabilities if organisations are not vigilant. Globally, 41% report encountering critical production security issues within their Java ecosystem on a weekly or daily basis. That figure rises to 49% in Germany but is less in France (42%) and the UK (40%). Furthermore, three years after the Log4j incident, almost half the companies (49%) in this survey are still experiencing security vulnerabilities from Log4j in production. That figure is dramatically higher in France and Germany (61%), but slightly lower in the UK (46%).

Therefore, a key part of Java strategies in 2025 should ensure security remains a top priority to prevent it hindering the performance of Java applications and infrastructure.

The future looks AI

The importance of optimisation and improving developer productivity will also lay the foundations for increased development of AI functionality using Java. While it is understandable Java users would be focused on Java, it is interesting they favour Java (50%) over Python (41%) for developing AI functionality. This is similar across Europe – in France (51%), the UK (49%) and Germany (44%) say they prefer using Java to develop AI functionality over Python.

However, as organisations begin to place even greater emphasis on AI to drive innovation, this also underlines the importance of optimisation. In the study globally 72% warn that their compute consumption will have to grow for them to support Java applications with AI functionality. We know already how expensive hardware resources are for AI and competition for those resources is only going to grow. Consequently, the more Java users can optimise their existing environments, the more they will be able to manage their costs. A higher proportion of UK respondents (74%) flag the same point, compared to Germany (66%) and France (61%).

Optimise now to embrace the future for Java

At a time when IT budgets continue to face constraints, CIOs are still expected to find resources to invest in next-generation technologies. There is a crucial role for Java engineers and developers to help organisations extract more value from existing systems so that they do not hinder productivity. By increasing the focus on optimisation - all while maintaining robust security policies – organisations will lay the right foundations to embrace innovations like AI and ensure Java remains integral in enterprise IT environments.

James Johnston is VP EMEA at Azul