AI as a mainstream and the most popular Java features in 2024 BellSoft Java Developer Survey

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a world of rapidly changing business priorities, we wanted to find out the key drivers of modern Java trends and coding practices. BellSoft's research reveals the ongoing performance conundrum – 73% of respondents believe that the performance of their enterprise Java applications can be improved and 58% of respondents agree that their business underestimates Java's potential to reduce cloud costs.

The research

The survey, conducted by the BellSoft Research Team, gathered insights from over 300 Devoxx Belgium attendees in three key areas: performance challenges associated with Java 11 and earlier versions; security and performance concerns; and AI's growing influence on application development.

Mature LTS releases in production

Delayed JDK migration is a fact, but its reasons vary: 18% of our respondents referred to a technical obstacle – third-party library dependencies – while the rest stated restrictions on business resources or other priorities. Meanwhile, almost a quarter (23%) confirmed to spend budget on enhancing performance of Java workloads running on JDK 11 and older.

Performance and efficiency concerns

The majority believe that the performance of Java-based applications can be improved (73%) and that the potential of Java optimization to reduce cloud cost is underrated (58%). 

The power of AI and modern Java features

AI assistance has become mainstream, with 74% of developers relying on AI Tools for code writing and 34% using an AI framework. The recently released Spring AI is the most popular choice.

Java continues improving, with many enhancements introduced in each LTS release. But which Java features are most commonly used in production? According to our survey, the top spots are taken by the language features, facilitating the development and maintenance of Java code: Records, Pattern Matching, Var and Enhanced Switch Expressions, followed closely by Virtual Threads.

Learn more about the priorities and emerging trends in Java development in our complete survey.

About BellSoft

BellSoft delivers the most complete Java experience with a more secure, reliable, and cost-effective approach to application development on any platform and in any environment. BellSoft is one of the leading contributors to the OpenJDK, and the only vendor that supports current LTS Java versions, legacy JDK 6 & 7 and Liberica NIK. Liberica JDK is the runtime of choice for VMware, Spring Framework, JetBrains, and millions of users worldwide. For more information, visit www.bell-sw.com.

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SOURCE BellSoft