The Microsoft Build of OpenJDK is a no-cost distribution of OpenJDK that's open source and available for free for anyone to deploy anywhere. It includes Long-Term Support (LTS) binaries for Java 11 and Java 17 on x64 server and desktop environments on macOS, Linux, and Windows, AArch64/ARM64 on Linux and Windows, binaries for macOS on Apple Silicon (AArch64/M1), and musl libc compiled binaries for Alpine Linux on x64.
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Oracle Java SE
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Oracle Java SE is a programming language and gives customers enterprise features that minimize the costs of deployment and maintenance of their Java-based IT environment.
I think of a few areas when looking at Microsoft Build of OpenJDK. The first is what is your cost to run for your intended product or project, if you are strapped and fall within the supported areas of Microsoft Build of OpenJDK then it's a no brainer, Microsoft Build of OpenJDK is for you! Lastly, I think of support in the respect to running into a wall and needing a fix. It can take a while for open source tools to produce fixes that the community warrants, so again if you aren't strapped for time and haven't run into a wall and could afford to wait for fixes or relevant patches then again Microsoft Build of OpenJDK is for you. Not everyone has this luxury, but these are a few areas to think about.
Oracle Java SE is well suited to long-running applications (e.g. servers). Java Swing (UI toolkit) is now rather outdated, lacking support for modern UI features. JavaFX, the potential replacement for Swing, has now been separated out of Java core. Ideally, there would be a path to migrate a large application incrementally from Swing to JavaFX, but due to different threading models and other aspects, it is difficult. At this point, it is probably better to use an embedded web browser (e.g. JxBrowser) to provide a modern UI in HTML/Javascript and keep just the business logic in Java.
Commercial Licensing in 2019. Oracle will charge commercial organizations using Java SE for upgrading to the latest bug fixes and updates. Organizations will now need to either limit their implementation of Java SE or may need to drop it altogether.
Slow Performance. Due to the all of the abstraction of the JVM, Java SE programs take much more resources to compile and run compared to Python.
Poor UI appearance on all of the major GUI libraries (Swing, SWT, etc.). Through Android Studio, it is easy to get a native look/feel for Java apps, but when it comes to desktops, the UI is far from acceptable (does not mimic the native OS's look/feel at all).
The language is fluent and has good support from a number of open source and commercial IDEs. Language features are added every 6 months, although long-term service releases are only available every 3 years. It would be nice if some of the older APIs were depreciated with more pressure to move to the new replacement APIs (e.g. File vs. Path), but transitions to new features are generally well implemented.
Java is such a mature product at this point that there is little support from the vendor that is needed. Various sources on the internet, and especially StackOverflow, provide a wealth of knowledge and advice. Areas that may benefit from support is when dealing with complex multithreading issues and security libraries.
Microsoft Build of OpenJDK stacks up against Oracle JDK (paid) very well. From both a performance, implementation, library support, and collaboration aspect.
Chose to go with Java instead of Python or C++ due to the expertise on the ground with the technology, for its ease of integration with our heterogeneous setup of production servers, and for the third party library support which we've found was able to address some challenging aspects of our business problem.
The different versions make it harder to work with other companies where some use newer versions while some use older versions, costing time to make them compatible.
Licenses are getting to be costly, forcing us to consider OpenJDK as an alternative.
New features take time to learn. When someone starts using them, everyone has to take time to learn.
