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Has anyone ever noticed major differences between different JVM distributions? I've used multiple distributions including TEMURIN and Corretto and never noticed

by jareds 2y ago

Has anyone ever noticed major differences between different JVM distributions? I've used multiple distributions including TEMURIN and Corretto and never noticed behavioral differences. I've never run Java at massive scale or performance critical code though.

unscaled 2y ago
The other JVM distributions are a drop-in replacement for Oracle. It seems like most big customers that aren't still running old versions of Java have already moved away from Oracle to different distributions. But Oracle is still exclusive on GraalVM. If you've got on the Native Image bandwagon (which is pushed heavily by new frameworks like Quarkus, Micronaut and Helidon), your lock-in to Oracle is stronger, at least as things currently stands. To make it worse, some features are only available in the paid Enterprise Edition. The pricing seems much better now (you no longer pay by core), but it's a far cry from open source. Unfortunately, some of these features are quite critical if you want native code that matches JVM performance.
malfist 2y ago
Usually the official JVM has access to newer and better versions of the garbage collectors more quickly as well as debugging tools. For example, the JDK 8 from oracle had the java flight recorder, a fantastic bit of tooling for debugging prod. I don't think the non-oracle versions got it until 10 or 12.
invalidname 2y ago
We test on all of them since we build observability solutions. We run a ridiculous amount of tests on every commit. There are minor differences, but not stuff you would notice when you build an app. If you do notice it then you have a bug in your code. IBM is probably the biggest difference since they do a lot of work on their JVM and have the most changes.
- jareds 2y ago
  Good to know some things never change. I used to work on z/OS and it was 50/50 if IBM would release a new major Java version the same year as Oracle.

by jareds 2y ago

unscaled 2y ago

The other JVM distributions are a drop-in replacement for Oracle. It seems like most big customers that aren't still running old versions of Java have already moved away from Oracle to different distributions. But Oracle is still exclusive on GraalVM. If you've got on the Native Image bandwagon (which is pushed heavily by new frameworks like Quarkus, Micronaut and Helidon), your lock-in to Oracle is stronger, at least as things currently stands. To make it worse, some features are only available in the paid Enterprise Edition. The pricing seems much better now (you no longer pay by core), but it's a far cry from open source. Unfortunately, some of these features are quite critical if you want native code that matches JVM performance.

malfist 2y ago

Usually the official JVM has access to newer and better versions of the garbage collectors more quickly as well as debugging tools. For example, the JDK 8 from oracle had the java flight recorder, a fantastic bit of tooling for debugging prod. I don't think the non-oracle versions got it until 10 or 12.

invalidname 2y ago

We test on all of them since we build observability solutions. We run a ridiculous amount of tests on every commit. There are minor differences, but not stuff you would notice when you build an app. If you do notice it then you have a bug in your code. IBM is probably the biggest difference since they do a lot of work on their JVM and have the most changes.

jareds 2y ago
Good to know some things never change. I used to work on z/OS and it was 50/50 if IBM would release a new major Java version the same year as Oracle.