> The JVM still uses quite a bit of memory, sometimes 3-4x more memory than say Ruby or Python (which are also garbage-collected languages). The JVM will use a

> The JVM still uses quite a bit of memory, sometimes 3-4x more memory than say Ruby or Python (which are also garbage-collected languages). The JVM will use as much memory it is assigned. Different GCs are more liberal with memory usage, especially the ones tuned for throughput. Newer, latency tuned GCs (like G1) will commit unused memory back to the OS. The performance of Java is nowhere near as Python and Ruby. Furthermore, Java is used in memory constrained systems like blu ray players and chip readers. So it depends on the JVM implementation and tuning. > There is a reason that Android phones ship with several times more system RAM than iOS devices. - The JVM is gradually becoming only suitable for server development. Android is not a JVM implementation, so you cannot make this claim.