Without using containers or fragile (and not very portable) executable wrappers you need to manage the JRE, JAR files and the right classpath. With go you can

Without using containers or fragile (and not very portable) executable wrappers you need to manage the JRE, JAR files and the right classpath. With go you can just run 'go build' and get static executables for all common platforms with zero dependencies. The key difference between that and just throwing jar files on random systems is that static executables truly work anywhere and will never crash because you don't have the right version of JDK and usually won't need messing up with arcane command line parameters or .properties files. Deployment is one area where Go truly shines and I guess that helped its popularity. PHP also got immensely popular due to ease of deployment, although of a different kind, in a different era and with different expectations.