Java version history

This article is about the Java programming language. For other uses, see History of Java.

The Java language has undergone several changes since JDK 1.0 as well as numerous additions of classes and packages to the standard library. Since J2SE 1.4, the evolution of the Java language has been governed by the Java Community Process (JCP), which uses Java Specification Requests (JSRs) to propose and specify additions and changes to the Java platform. The language is specified by the Java Language Specification (JLS); changes to the JLS are managed under JSR 901. In September 2017, Mark Reinhold, chief Architect of the Java Platform, proposed to change the release train to "one feature release every six months" rather than the then-current two-year schedule. This proposal took effect for all following versions, and is still the current release schedule.

In addition to the language changes, other changes have been made to the Java Class Library over the years, which has grown from a few hundred classes in JDK 1.0 to over three thousand in J2SE 5. Entire new APIs, such as Swing and Java2D, have been introduced, and many of the original JDK 1.0 classes and methods have been deprecated. Some programs allow conversion of Java programs from one version of the Java platform to an older one (for example Java 5.0 backported to 1.4) (see Java backporting tools).

Regarding Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap, version 19 is the latest one, and versions 17, 11 and 8 are the currently supported long-term support (LTS) versions, where Oracle Customers will receive Oracle Premier Support. Java 8 LTS the last free software public update for commercial use was released by Oracle in March 2022, while Oracle continues to release no-cost public Java 8 updates for development and personal use indefinitely. Java 7 is no longer publicly supported. For Java 11, long-term support will not be provided by Oracle for the public; instead, the broader OpenJDK community, as Eclipse Adoptium or others, is expected to perform the work.

Java 17 the latest (3rd) LTS was released on September 14, 2021.

Java 19 General Availability began on September 20, 2022.

JDK 1.0

JDK 1.0

Released	January 23, 1996 (1996-01-23)

The first version was released on January 23, 1996. The first stable version, JDK 1.0.2, is called Java 1.

JDK 1.1

JDK 1.1

Released	February 19, 1997 (1997-02-19)

Major additions in the release on February 19, 1997 included:

• an extensive retooling of the AWT event model
• inner classes added to the language
• JavaBeans
• JDBC
• RMI and serialization
• reflection which supported Introspection only, no modification at runtime was possible. (The ability to modify objects reflectively was added in J2SE 1.2, by introducing the AccessibleObject class and its subclasses such as the Field class.)
• JIT (Just In Time) compiler on Microsoft Windows platforms, produced for JavaSoft by Symantec
• Internationalization and Unicode support originating from Taligent

J2SE 1.2

J2SE 1.2

Codename	Playground
Released	December 8, 1998 (1998-12-08)

The release on December 8, 1998 and subsequent releases through J2SE 5.0 were rebranded retrospectively Java 2 and the version name "J2SE" (Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition) replaced JDK to distinguish the base platform from J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) and J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition). This was a very significant release of Java as it tripled the size of the Java platform to 1520 classes in 59 packages. Major additions included:

• strictfp keyword (by JVM 17 an obsolete keyword, shouldn't be used in new code)
• the Swing graphical API was integrated into the core classes
• Sun's JVM was equipped with a JIT compiler for the first time
• Java plug-in
• Java IDL, an IDL implementation for CORBA interoperability
• Collections framework

J2SE 1.3

J2SE 1.3

Codename	Kestrel
Released	May 8, 2000 (2000-05-08)

The most notable changes in the May 8, 2000 release were:

• HotSpot JVM included (the HotSpot JVM was first released in April 1999 for the J2SE 1.2 JVM)
• RMI was modified to support optional compatibility with CORBA
• Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) included in core libraries (previously available as an extension)
• Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA)
• JavaSound
• Synthetic proxy classes

Java 1.3 is the last release of Java to officially support Microsoft Windows 95.

J2SE 1.4

J2SE 1.4

Codename	Merlin
Released	February 6, 2002 (2002-02-06)
Support ended
Public	October 2008 (2008-10)
Paid	February 2013 (2013-02)

The February 6, 2002 release was the first release of the Java platform developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 59. Major changes included:

• Language changes
  • assert keyword (specified in JSR 41)
• Library improvements
  • Regular expressions modeled after Perl regular expressions
  • Exception chaining allows an exception to encapsulate original lower-level exception
  • Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support
  • Non-blocking I/O (named NIO) (specified in JSR 51)
  • Logging API (specified in JSR 47)
  • Image I/O API for reading and writing images in formats like JPEG and PNG
  • Integrated XML parser and XSLT processor (JAXP) (specified in JSR 5 and JSR 63)
  • Integrated security and cryptography extensions (JCE, JSSE, JAAS)
  • Java Web Start included (Java Web Start was first released in March 2001 for J2SE 1.3) (specified in JSR 56)
  • Preferences API (java.util.prefs)

Public support and security updates for Java 1.4 ended in October 2008. Paid security updates for Oracle customers ended in February 2013.

Java SE 5

Java SE 5

Codename	Tiger
Released	September 30, 2004 (2004-09-30)
Support ended
Public	November 2009 (2009-11)
Paid	April 2015 (2015-04)

The release on September 30, 2004 was originally numbered 1.5, which is still used as the internal version number. The number was changed to "better reflect the level of maturity, stability, scalability and security of the J2SE". This version was developed under JSR 176.

Java SE 5 entered its end-of-public-updates period on April 8, 2008; updates are no longer available to the public as of November 3, 2009. Updates were available to paid Oracle customers until May 2015.

Tiger added a number of significant new language features:

• Generics: provides compile-time (static) type safety for collections and eliminates the need for most typecasts (type conversion) (specified by JSR 14)
• Metadata: also called annotations; allows language constructs such as classes and methods to be tagged with additional data, which can then be processed by metadata-aware utilities (specified by JSR 175)
• Autoboxing/unboxing: automatic conversions between primitive types (such as int) and primitive wrapper classes (such as Integer) (specified by JSR 201)
• Enumerations: the enum keyword creates a typesafe, ordered list of values (such as Day.MONDAY, Day.TUESDAY, etc.); previously this could only be achieved by non-typesafe constant integers or manually constructed classes (typesafe enum pattern) (specified by JSR 201)
• Varargs: the last parameter of a method can now be declared using a type name followed by three dots (e.g. void drawtext(String... lines)); in the calling code any number of parameters of that type can be used and they are then placed in an array to be passed to the method, or alternatively the calling code can pass an array of that type
• Enhanced for each loop: the for loop syntax is extended with special syntax for iterating over each member of either an array or any Iterable, such as the standard Collection classes (specified by JSR 201)
• Improved semantics of execution for multi-threaded Java programs; the new Java memory model addresses issues of complexity, effectiveness, and performance of previous specifications
• Static imports

There were also the following improvements to the standard libraries:

• Automatic stub generation for RMI objects
• Swing: New skinnable look and feel, called synth
• The concurrency utilities in package java.util.concurrent
• Scanner class for parsing data from various input streams and buffers

Java 5 is the last release of Java to officially support Microsoft Windows 98 and Windows ME, while Windows Vista was the newest version of Windows that Java SE 5 was supported on prior to Java 5 going end-of-life in October of 2009.

Java 5 Update 5 (1.5.0_05) is the last release of Java to work on Windows 95 (with Internet Explorer 5.5 installed) and Windows NT 4.0.

Java 5 was first available on Apple Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and was the default version of Java installed on Apple Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Public support and security updates for Java 1.5 ended in November 2009. Paid security updates for Oracle customers ended in April 2015.

Versioning change

This version introduced a new versioning system for the Java language, although the old versioning system continued to be used for developer libraries:

Both version numbers "1.5.0" and "5.0" are used to identify this release of the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition. Version "5.0" is the product version, while "1.5.0" is the developer version. The number "5.0" is used to better reflect the level of maturity, stability, scalability and security of the J2SE.

— "Version 1.5.0 or 5.0?", Java release notes

This correspondence continued through later releases (Java 6 = JDK 1.6, Java 7 = JDK 1.7, and so on).

Java SE 6

Java SE 6

Codename	Mustang
Released	November 11, 2006 (2006-11-11)
Support ended
Public	February 2013 (2013-02)

As of the version released on December 11, 2006, Sun replaced the name "J2SE" with Java SE and dropped the ".0" from the version number. Internal numbering for developers remains 1.6.0.

This version was developed under JSR 270.

During the development phase, new builds including enhancements and bug fixes were released approximately weekly. Beta versions were released in February and June 2006, leading up to a final release that occurred on December 11, 2006.

Major changes included in this version:

• Support for older Win9x versions dropped; unofficially, Java 6 Update 7 was the last release of Java shown to work on these versions of Windows. This is believed to be due to the major changes in Update 10.
• Scripting Language Support (JSR 223): Generic API for tight integration with scripting languages, and built-in Mozilla JavaScript Rhino integration.
• Dramatic performance improvements for the core platform, and Swing.
• Improved Web Service support through JAX-WS (JSR 224).
• JDBC 4.0 support (JSR 221).
• Java Compiler API (JSR 199): an API allowing a Java program to select and invoke a Java Compiler programmatically.
• Upgrade of JAXB to version 2.0: Including integration of a StAX parser.
• Support for pluggable annotations (JSR 269).
• Many GUI improvements, such as integration of SwingWorker in the API, table sorting and filtering, and true Swing double-buffering (eliminating the gray-area effect).
• JVM improvements include: synchronization and compiler performance optimizations, new algorithms and upgrades to existing garbage collection algorithms, and application start-up performance.

Java 6 can be installed to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) running on 64-bit (Core 2 Duo and higher) processor machines. Java 6 is also supported by both 32-bit and 64-bit machines running Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

Java 6 reached the end of its supported life in February 2013, at which time all public updates, including security updates, were scheduled to be stopped. Oracle released two more updates to Java 6 in March and April 2013, which patched some security vulnerabilities.

Java 6 updates

After Java 6 release, Sun, and later Oracle, released several updates which, while not changing any public API, enhanced end-user usability or fixed bugs.

Table of Java 6 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 6	2006-12-23	This release adds many enhancements in the fields of Web services, scripting, databases, pluggable annotations, and security, as well as quality, compatibility, and stability. JConsole is now officially supported. Java DB support has been added.
Java SE 6 Update 1Template:Java release notes	2007-05-07
Java SE 6 Update 2Template:Java release notes	2007-07-03
Java SE 6 Update 3Template:Java release notes	2007-10-03
Java SE 6 Update 4Template:Java release notes	2008-01-14	HotSpot VM 10
Java SE 6 Update 5Template:Java release notes	2008-03-05	Several security flaws were eliminated. New root certificates from AOL, DigiCert, and TrustCenter are now included.
Java SE 6 Update 6Template:Java release notes	2008-04-16	A workaround for the infamous Xlib/XCB locking assertion issue was introduced. A memory leak when using Kerberos authentication with LoginContext was fixed. Several other bugs were fixed.
Java SE 6 Update 7Template:Java release notes		Unofficially, Java SE 6 Update 7 (1.6.0.7) is the last version of Java that was shown to be working on the Win9x family of operating systems
Java SE 6 Update 10Template:Java release notes	2008-10-15	HotSpot VM 11. Major changes for this update include: Java Deployment Toolkit, a set of JavaScript functions to ease the deployment of applets and Java Web Start applications. Java Kernel, a small installer including only the most commonly used JRE classes. Other packages are downloaded when needed. Enhanced updater. Enhanced versioning and pack200 support: server-side support is no longer required. Java Quick Starter, to improve cold start-up time. Improved performance of Java2D graphics primitives on Windows, using Direct3D and hardware acceleration. A new Swing look and feel called Nimbus and based on synth. Next-Generation Java Plug-In: applets now run in a separate process and support many features of Web Start applications.
Java SE 6 Update 11 Template:Java release notes	2008-12-03	13 security fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 6 Update 12Template:Java release notes	2008-12-12	No security fixes; 64-bit Java plug-in (for 64-bit web browsers only); Windows Server 2008 support; performance improvements of graphics and JavaFX applications
Java SE 6 Update 13Template:Java release notes	2009-03-24	7 security fixes, JNDI store and retrieve Java objects in LDAP slightly modified, JMX Change (createMBeanunregisterMBean), 4 new root certificates added
Java SE 6 Update 14Template:Java release notes	2009-05-28	HotSpot VM 14. This release includes extensive performance updates to the JIT compiler, compressed pointers for 64-bit machines, as well as support for the G1 (Garbage First) low-pause garbage collector. The -XX:+DoEscapeAnalysis option directs the HotSpot JIT compiler to use escape analysis to determine whether local objects can be allocated on the stack instead of the heap.Template:Java release notes Some developers have noticed an issue introduced in this release which causes debuggers to miss breakpoints seemingly randomly. Sun has a corresponding bug, which is tracking the issue. The workaround applies to the Client and Server VMs. Using the -XX:+UseParallelGC option will prevent the failure. Another workaround is to roll back to update 13, or to upgrade to update 16.
Java SE 6 Update 15Template:Java release notes	2009-08-04	Introduced patch-in-place functionality
Java SE 6 Update 16Template:Java release notes	2009-08-11	Fixed the issue introduced in update 14 which caused debuggers to miss breakpoints
Java SE 6 Update 17Template:Java release notes	2009-11-04	Security fixes; two new root certificates
Java SE 6 Update 18Template:Java release notes	2010-01-13	No security fixes; Hotspot VM 16; support for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition, SLES 11, Windows 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, Firefox 3.6, VisualVM 1.2; updated Java DB; many performance improvements
Java SE 6 Update 19Template:Java release notes	2010-03-30	Security fixes; root certificate changes: seven new, three removed, five replaced with stronger signature algorithms; interim fix for TLS renegotiation attack
Java SE 6 Update 20Template:Java release notes	2010-04-15	2 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 21Template:Java release notes	2010-07-07	No security fixes; Hotspot VM 17; support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 and 5.5, Oracle Enterprise Linux 4.8, 5.4, 5.5; Google Chrome 4 support; support for Customized Loading Progress Indicators; VisualVM 1.2.2
Java SE 6 Update 22Template:Java release notes	2010-10-12	29 security fixes; RFC 5746 support
Java SE 6 Update 23Template:Java release notes	2010-12-08	No security fixes; Hotspot VM 19; better support for right-to-left languages
Java SE 6 Update 24Template:Java release notes	2011-02-15	21 security fixes; updated Java DB
Java SE 6 Update 25Template:Java release notes	2011-03-21	No security fixes; Hotspot VM 20; support for Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4 and Chrome 10; improved BigDecimal; includes "tiered" compilation in the Server VM that enables it to start quickly as does the Client VM, while achieving better peak performance (this feature is enabled by specifying -server and -XX:+TieredCompilation command options)
Java SE 6 Update 26Template:Java release notes	2011-06-07	17 new security fixes; last version compatible with Windows Vista SP1
Java SE 6 Update 27Template:Java release notes	2011-08-16	No security fixes; certification for Firefox 5
Java SE 6 Update 29Template:Java release notes	2011-10-18	20 security fixes, various bug fixes
Java SE 6 Update 30Template:Java release notes	2011-12-12	No security fixes; fix for SSL regression in Update 29; support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Java SE 6 Update 31Template:Java release notes	2012-02-14	14 security fixes and one bug fix; last version work reliably for Windows 2000
Java SE 6 Update 32Template:Java release notes	2012-04-26	No security fixes, various bug fixes
Java SE 6 Update 33Template:Java release notes	2012-06-12	14 security fixes, improved VM configuration file loading
Java SE 6 Update 34Template:Java release notes	2012-08-14	No security fixes, various bug fixes
Java SE 6 Update 35Template:Java release notes	2012-08-30	Contains a security-in-depth fix
Java SE 6 Update 37Template:Java release notes	2012-10-16	30 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 38Template:Java release notes	2012-12-11	Various bug fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 6 Update 39Template:Java release notes	2013-02-01	50 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 41Template:Java release notes	2013-02-19	5 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 43Template:Java release notes	2013-03-04	2 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 45Template:Java release notes	2013-04-16	42 security fixes; other changes; final public update.
Java SE 6 Update 51	2013-06-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Apple Update for OS X Snow Leopard, Lion & Mountain Lion; up to 40 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 65	2013-10-15	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Apple Update for OS X Snow Leopard, Lion & Mountain Lion; at least 11 critical security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 71	2014-01-14	Not available for public download; 33 fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 6 Update 75	2014-04-15	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster no. #54; 25 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 81	2014-07-15	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 11 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 85	2014-10-16	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 18 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 91	2015-01-21	Linux x64 and Windows i586 versions are available as the Java SE 6 Reference Implementation. Other versions are only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 15 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 95	2015-04-14	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 14 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 101	2015-07-15	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 18 security fixes Certification for IE 10 and 11 was introduced in 1.6.0_101
Java SE 6 Update 105	2015-10-20	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 17 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 111	2016-01-20	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 13 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 113	2016-02-05	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 1 security fix
Java SE 6 Update 115	2016-04-21	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 8 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 121	2016-07-19	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 15 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 131	2016-10-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 13 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 141	2017-01-17	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 17 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 151	2017-04-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 10 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 161	2017-07-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 5 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 171	2017-10-20	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 7 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 181	2018-01-16	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 12 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 191	2018-04-17	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 7 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 201	2018-07-17	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 3 security fixes
Java SE 6 Update 211	2018-10-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 8 security fixes

Java SE 7

Java SE 7

Codename	Dolphin
Released	July 28, 2011 (2011-07-28)
Support ended
Public	April 2015 (2015-04)
Paid	June 2022 (2022-06)

Java 7 is a major update that was launched on July 7, 2011 and was made available for developers on July 28, 2011. The development period was organized into thirteen milestones; on June 6, 2011, the last of the thirteen milestones was finished. On average, 8 builds (which generally included enhancements and bug fixes) were released per milestone. The feature list at the OpenJDK 7 project lists many of the changes.

Additions in Java 7 include:

• JVM support for dynamic languages, with the new invokedynamic bytecode under JSR-292, following the prototyping work currently done on the Multi Language Virtual Machine
• Compressed 64-bit pointers (available in Java 6 with -XX:+UseCompressedOops)
• These small language changes (grouped under a project named Coin):

• Strings in switch
• Automatic resource management in try-statement aka try-with-resources statement
• Improved type inference for generic instance creation, aka the diamond operator <>
• Simplified varargs method declaration
• Binary integer literals
• Allowing underscores in numeric literals
• Catching multiple exception types and rethrowing exceptions with improved type checking

• Concurrency utilities under JSR 166
• New file I/O library (defined by JSR 203) adding support for multiple file systems, file metadata and symbolic links. The new packages are java.nio.file, java.nio.file.attribute and java.nio.file.spi
• Timsort is used to sort collections and arrays of objects instead of merge sort
• Library-level support for elliptic curve cryptography algorithms
• An XRender pipeline for Java 2D, which improves handling of features specific to modern GPUs
• New platform APIs for the graphics features originally implemented in version 6u10 as unsupported APIs
• Enhanced library-level support for new network protocols, including SCTP and Sockets Direct Protocol
• Upstream updates to XML and Unicode
• Java deployment rule sets

Lambda (Java's implementation of lambda functions), Jigsaw (Java's implementation of modules), and part of Coin were dropped from Java 7, and released as part of Java 8 (except for Jigsaw, which was released in Java 9).

Java 7 was the default version to download on java.com from April 2012 until Java 8 was released.

Java 7 updates

Oracle issued public updates to the Java 7 family on a quarterly basis until April 2015 when the product reached the end of its public availability. Further updates for JDK 7, which continued until July 2022, are only made available to customers with a support contract.

Table of Java 7 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 7	2011-07-28	Initial release; HotSpot VM 21
Java SE 7 Update 1Template:Java release notes	2011-10-18	20 security fixes, other bug fixes
Java SE 7 Update 2Template:Java release notes	2011-12-12	No security fixes; HotSpot VM 22; reliability and performance improvements; support for Solaris 11 and Firefox 5 and later; JavaFX included with Java SE JDK, improvements for web-deployed applications
Java SE 7 Update 3Template:Java release notes	2012-02-14	14 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 4Template:Java release notes	2012-04-26	No security updates; HotSpot VM 23; JDK Support for Mac OS X
Java SE 7 Update 5Template:Java release notes	2012-06-12	14 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 6Template:Java release notes	2012-08-14	JavaFX and Java Access Bridge included in Java SE JDK and JRE installation, JavaFX support for touch-enabled monitors and touch pads, JavaFX support for Linux, JDK and JRE Support for Mac OS X, JDK for Linux on ARM
Java SE 7 Update 7Template:Java release notes	2012-08-30	4 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 9Template:Java release notes	2012-10-16	30 security vulnerabilities fixes
Java SE 7 Update 10Template:Java release notes	2012-12-11	New security features, such as the ability to disable any Java application from running in the browser and new dialogs to warn you when the JRE is insecure, and bug fixes
Java SE 7 Update 11Template:Java release notes	2013-01-13	Olson Data 2012i; bugfix for problems with registration of plugin on systems with Stand-alone version of JavaFX Installed, security fixes for CVE-2013-0422; the default security level for Java applets and web start applications has been increased from "Medium" to "High"
Java SE 7 Update 13 Template:Java release notes	2013-02-01	50 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 15Template:Java release notes	2013-02-19	5 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 17Template:Java release notes	2013-03-04	2 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 21Template:Java release notes	2013-04-16	Multiple changes including 42 security fixes, a new Server JRE that doesn't include the plug-in, and the JDK for Linux on ARM
Java SE 7 Update 25Template:Java release notes	2013-06-18	Multiple changes including 40 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 40Template:Java release notes	2013-09-10	621 bug fixes, New security features, hardfloat ARM, Java Mission Control 5.2 and Retina Display support
Java SE 7 Update 45Template:Java release notes	2013-10-15	51 security fixes; protections against unauthorized redistribution of Java applications; restore security prompts; JAXP changes; TimeZone.setDefault change
Java SE 7 Update 51Template:Java release notes	2014-01-14	36 security fixes; block JAVA applets without manifest (like Remote console – Java Applet – IBM IMM card, HP iLO card) even if warning dialog is with sentence "will be blocked in next version", 17 bug fixes
Java SE 7 Update 55Template:Java release notes	2014-04-15	37 security fixes, 19 bug fixes
Java SE 7 Update 60Template:Java release notes	2014-05-28	Java Mission Control 5.3, 130 bug fixes
Java SE 7 Update 65Template:Java release notes	2014-07-15	18 bug fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 7 Update 67Template:Java release notes	2014-08-04	1 bug fix
Java SE 7 Update 71Template:Java release notes	2014-10-14	16 bug fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 7 Update 72Template:Java release notes	2014-10-14	Same release date with Update 71 as a corresponding Patch Set Update (PSU) for Java SE 7, 36 bug fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 7 Update 75Template:Java release notes	2015-01-20	12 bug fixes,Template:Java release notes SSLv3 disabled by default
Java SE 7 Update 76Template:Java release notes	2015-01-20	Same release date with Update 75 as a corresponding Patch Set Update (PSU) for Java SE 7, 97 bug fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 7 Update 79Template:Java release notes	2015-04-14	21 security fixes, 6 bug fixes,Template:Java release notes
Java SE 7 Update 80Template:Java release notes	2015-04-14	Last public release of Java 7; same release date with Update 79 as a corresponding Patch Set Update (PSU) for Java SE 7, 104 bug fixesTemplate:Java release notes
Java SE 7 Update 85	2015-07-15	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 25 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 91	2015-10-20	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 20 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 95	2016-01-19	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 8 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 97	2016-02-05	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 1 security fix
Java SE 7 Update 99	2016-03-23	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 1 security fix
Java SE 7 Update 101	2016-04-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 22 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 111	2016-07-19	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 36 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 121	2016-10-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 32 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 131	2017-01-17	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 34 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 141	2017-04-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 8 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 151	2017-07-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 4 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 161	2017-10-20	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 4 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 171	2018-01-16	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 51 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 181	2018-04-17	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 12 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 191	2018-07-17	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 9 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 201	2018-10-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 13 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 211	2019-01-15	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 5 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 221	2019-04-16	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 5 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 231	2019-07-16	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 6 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 241	2019-10-15	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 15 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 251	2020-01-14	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 12 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 261	2020-04-14	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 15 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 271	2020-07-14	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 11 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 281	2020-10-20	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 8 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 291	2021-01-19	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 1 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 301	2021-04-12	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 11 security fixes
Java SE 7 Update 311	2021-07-20	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 24 bug fixes
Java SE 7 Update 321	2021-10-19	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 16 bug fixes
Java SE 7 Update 331	2022-01-18	Not available publicly, only available through the Java SE Support program and in Solaris 10's Recommended Patchset Cluster; 18 bug fixes

Java SE 8

Java SE 8

LTS version
Released	March 18, 2014 (2014-03-18)
# of JEPs	8

Java 8 was released on March 18, 2014, and included some features that were planned for Java 7 but later deferred.

Work on features was organized in terms of JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs).

• JSR 335, JEP 126: Language-level support for lambda expressions (officially, lambda expressions; unofficially, closures) under Project Lambda and default methods (virtual extension methods) which can be used to add methods to interfaces without breaking existing implementations. There was an ongoing debate in the Java community on whether to add support for lambda expressions. Sun later declared that lambda expressions would be included in Java and asked for community input to refine the feature. Supporting lambda expressions also enables functional-style operations on streams of elements, such as MapReduce-inspired transformations on collections. Default methods can be used by an author of an API to add new methods to an interface without breaking the old code using it. Although it was not their primary intent, default methods can also be used for multiple inheritance of behavior (but not state).

• JEP 174: Project Nashorn, a JavaScript runtime which can run JavaScript code embedded within applications
• JEP 104: Annotation on Java types
• Unsigned integer arithmetic
• JEP 120: Repeating annotations
• JEP 150: Date and time API
• JEP 178: Statically-linked JNI libraries
• JEP 153: Launch JavaFX applications (direct launching of JavaFX application JARs)
• JEP 122: Remove the permanent generation

Java 8 is not supported on Windows XP but as of JDK 8 update 25, it can still be installed and run under Windows XP. Previous updates of JDK 8 could be run under XP by downloading archived zip format file and unzipping it for the executable.The last version of Java 8 could run on XP is update 251.But its components compatibility starts to break on unsupported OS in early build during Java 8 updates development.

From October 2014, Java 8 was the default version to download (and then again the download replacing Java 9) from the official website. "Oracle will continue to provide Public Updates and auto updates of Java SE 8, Indefinitely for Personal Users".

Java 8 updates

Table of Java 8 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 8	2014-03-18	Initial release
Java SE 8 Update 5	2014-04-15	Using "*" in Caller-Allowable-Codebase attribute; 11 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 11	2014-07-15	Java Dependency Analysis Tool (jdeps); Java Control Panel option to disable sponsors; JAR file attribute – Entry-Point; JAXP processing limit property – maxElementDepth; 18 security bug fixes, 15 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 20	2014-08-19	669 bug fixes, JMC 5.4, String deduplication (disabled by default)
Java SE 8 Update 25	2014-10-14	10 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 31	2015-01-19	26 bug fixes; SSLv3 (disabled by default)
Java SE 8 Update 40	2015-03-03	645 bug fixes, Added the notion of "memory pressure" to help indicate how much of system's memory is still available (low pressure = high memory, high pressure = low memory)
Java SE 8 Update 45	2015-04-14	13 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 51	2015-07-14	Added support for native sandbox on Windows platforms (disabled by default); also, 25 security fixes, 14 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 60	2015-08-18	480 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 65	2015-10-20	25 security fixes, 3 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 66	2015-11-16	15 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 71	2016-01-19	8 security fixes, 5 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 72	2016-01-19	8 security fixes, 5 bug fixes, several enhancements
Java SE 8 Update 73	2016-02-03	1 security fix
Java SE 8 Update 74	2016-02-03	1 security fix
Java SE 8 Update 77	2016-03-23	1 security fix
Java SE 8 Update 91	2016-04-19	9 security fixes, 4 bug fixes and enhancements
Java SE 8 Update 92	2016-04-19	Security and bug fixes from 8u91, plus 76 additional bug fixes; the ExitOnOutOfMemoryError and CrashOnOutOfMemoryError flags have been introduced
Java SE 8 Update 101	2016-07-19	Security and bug fixes from 8u92, plus 9 additional bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 102	2016-07-19	Security and bug fixes from 8u101, plus 118 additional bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 111	2016-10-18	7 Security fixes and 9 bug fixes
Java SE 8 Update 112	2016-10-18	Additional features and 139 bug fixes over 8u111
Java SE 8 Update 121	2017-01-17	3 additional features, 5 changes, and 11 bug fixes over 8u112.
Java SE 8 Update 131	2017-04-18	4 changes and 42 bug fixes (2 notable).
Java SE 8 Update 141	2017-07-18	Additional feature, 3 changes and 12 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 144	2017-07-26	32 Security fixes and bug fixes from 8u141.
Java SE 8 Update 151	2017-10-17	22 Security fixes, 2 notes, 1 certificate revocation, 1 new feature, 6 changes and 24 bug fixes from 8u144.
Java SE 8 Update 152	2017-10-17	Security fixes, 1 new feature, 1 change and 238 bug fixes from 8u151 (1 notable).
Java SE 8 Update 161	2018-01-16	21 Security fixes, 3 new features, 9 changes and 1 bug fix from 8u152.
Java SE 8 Update 162	2018-01-16	Security fixes, 63 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 171	2018-04-17	Security fixes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 172	2018-04-17	Security fixes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 181	2018-07-17	Security fixes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 191	2018-10-16	New features, changes, bug fixes, security fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 192	2018-10-16	New features, changes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 201	2019-01-15	New features, changes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 202	2019-01-15	New features, changes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 211	2019-04-16	New features, changes, bug fixes. License Update.
Java SE 8 Update 212	2019-04-16	New features (e.g. 5 currency symbols, including for Bitcoin and "New Japanese Era Name Reiwa"), changes, bug fixes. License Update.
Java SE 8 Update 221	2019-07-16	New features, changes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 231	2019-10-15	New features, changes, bug fixes and 18 security fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 241	2020-01-14	New features, changes, bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 251	2020-04-14	New features, changes, bug fixes. The last version that was shown to be working on Windows XP unofficially.
Java SE 8 Update 261	2020-07-14	New features, changes, 133 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 271	2020-10-20	New features, changes, 65 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 281	2021-01-19	New features, changes, 33 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 291	2021-04-20	New features, changes, 28 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 301	2021-07-20	New features, changes, 90 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 311	2021-10-19	New features, changes, 52 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 321	2022-01-18	New features, changes, 62 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 331	2022-04-19	New features, changes, 37 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 333	2022-05-02	Patch w/1 change and 2 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 341	2022-07-19	New features, changes, 42 bug fixes.
Java SE 8 Update 351	2022-10-18	New features, changes, 95 bug fixes.

Java SE 9

Java SE 9

Released	September 21, 2017 (2017-09-21)
# of JEPs	9

Java SE 9 was made available on September 21, 2017, due to controversial acceptance of the current implementation of Project Jigsaw by Java Executive Committee, which led Oracle to fix some open issues and concerns, and to refine some critical technical questions. In the last days of June 2017, Java Community Process expressed nearly unanimous consensus on the proposed Module System scheme.

• JSR 376: Modularization of the JDK under Project Jigsaw (Java Platform Module System)
• JavaDB was removed from JDK
• JEP 193: Variable handles, define a standard means to invoke the equivalents of various java.util.concurrent.atomic and sun.misc.Unsafe operations
• JEP 213: Milling Project Coin, allow @SafeVarargs on private instance methods; Allow effectively-final variables to be used as resources in the try-with-resources statement; Allow diamond with anonymous classes if the argument type of the inferred type is denotable; Complete the removal, begun in Java SE 8, of underscore from the set of legal identifier names; Support for private methods in interfaces
• JEP 222: jshell: The Java Shell (Read-Eval-Print Loop): JShell is a REPL command-line interface for the Java language.
• JEP 254: Compact Strings
• JEP 263: HiDPI graphics: automatic scaling and sizing
• JEP 266: More concurrency updates, it includes a Java implementation of Reactive Streams, including a new Flow class that included the interfaces previously provided by Reactive Streams
• JEP 268: XML catalogs
• JEP 282: jlink: The Java Linker, create a tool that can assemble and optimize a set of modules and their dependencies into a custom run-time image. It effectively allows to produce a fully usable executable including the JVM to run it
• JEP 295: Ahead-of-Time Compilation, ahead-of-time compilation provided by GraalVM

The first Java 9 release candidate was released on August 9, 2017. The first stable release of Java 9 was on September 21, 2017.

History

At JavaOne 2011, Oracle discussed features they hoped to release for Java 9 in 2016. Java 9 should include better support for multi-gigabyte heaps, better native code integration, a different default garbage collector (G1, for "shorter response times") and a self-tuning JVM. In early 2016, the release of Java 9 was rescheduled for March 2017 and later again postponed four more months to July 2017.

Java 9 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 9	2017-09-21	Initial release
Java SE 9.0.1	2017-10-17	October 2017 security fixes and critical bug fixes
Java SE 9.0.4	2018-01-16	Final release for JDK 9; January 2018 security fixes and critical bug fixes

Java SE 10

Java SE 10

Released	March 20, 2018 (2018-03-20)
# of JEPs	12

OpenJDK 10 was released on March 20, 2018, with twelve new features confirmed. Among these features were:

• JEP 286: Local-Variable Type Inference
• JEP 296: Consolidate the JDK Forest into a Single Repository
• JEP 304: Garbage-Collector Interface
• JEP 307: Parallel Full GC for G1
• JEP 310: Application Class-Data Sharing
• JEP 312: Thread-Local Handshakes
• JEP 313: Remove the Native-Header Generation Tool (javah)
• JEP 314: Additional Unicode Language-Tag Extensions
• JEP 316: Heap Allocation on Alternative Memory Devices
• JEP 317: Experimental Java-Based JIT Compiler
• JEP 319: Root Certificates
• JEP 322: Time-Based Release Versioning

The first of these JEP 286 Local-Variable Type Inference, allows the var keyword to be used for local variables with the actual type calculated by the compiler. So we can do:

var list = new ArrayList<String>(); // infers ArrayList<String>
var stream = list.stream();         // infers Stream<String>

Java 10 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 10	2018-03-20	Initial release
Java SE 10.0.1	2018-04-17	Security fixes, 5 bug fixes
Java SE 10.0.2	2018-07-17	Final release for JDK 10. Security fixes, 7 bug fixes

Java SE 11

Java SE 11

LTS version
Released	September 25, 2018 (2018-09-25)
# of JEPs	17
Removal(s)
Notable	Java applets, Java Web Start, JavaFX, JavaEE, and CORBA modules

JDK 11 was released on September 25, 2018 and the version is currently open for bug fixes. It offers LTS, or Long-Term Support. Among others, Java 11 includes a number of new features, such as:

• JEP 181: Nest-Based Access Control
• JEP 309: Dynamic Class-File Constants
• JEP 315: Improve Aarch64 Intrinsics
• JEP 318: Epsilon: A No-Op Garbage Collector
• JEP 320: Remove the Java EE and CORBA Modules
• JEP 321: HTTP Client (Standard)
• JEP 323: Local-Variable Syntax for Lambda Parameters
• JEP 324: Key Agreement with Curve25519 and Curve448
• JEP 327: Unicode 10
• JEP 328: Flight Recorder
• JEP 329: ChaCha20 and Poly1305 Cryptographic Algorithms
• JEP 330: Launch Single-File Source-Code Programs
• JEP 331: Low-Overhead Heap Profiling
• JEP 332: Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3
• JEP 333: ZGC: A Scalable Low-Latency Garbage Collector (Experimental)
• JEP 335: Deprecate the Nashorn JavaScript Engine
• JEP 336: Deprecate the Pack200 Tools and API

A number of features from previous releases were dropped; in particular, Java applets and Java Web Start are no longer available. JavaFX, Java EE and CORBA modules have been removed from JDK.

Java 11 updates

Table of Java 11 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 11	2018-09-25	Initial release
Java SE 11.0.1	2018-10-16	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.2	2019-01-15	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.3	2019-04-16	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.4	2019-07-16	New features, Security & bug fixes; HotSpot Windows OS Detection Correctly Identifies Windows Server 2019
Java SE 11.0.5	2019-10-15	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.6	2020-01-14	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.7	2020-04-14	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.8	2020-07-14	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.9	2020-10-20	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.10	2021-01-19	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.11	2021-04-20	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.12	2021-07-20	New features, Security & bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.13	2021-10-19	New features, Security & 93 bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.14	2022-01-18	New features, Security & 71 bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.15	2022-04-19	New features, Security & 81 bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.16	2022-07-19	New features, Security & 74 bug fixes
Java SE 11.0.17	2022-10-18	New features, Security & 118 bug fixes

Java SE 12

Java SE 12

Released	March 19, 2019 (2019-03-19)
# of JEPs	8
Addition(s)
Preview(s)	Enhanced switch statements

JDK 12 was released on March 19, 2019. Among others, Java 12 includes a number of new features, such as:

• JEP 189: Shenandoah: A Low-Pause-Time Garbage Collector (Experimental)
• JEP 230: Microbenchmark Suite
• JEP 325: Switch Expressions (Preview)
• JEP 334: JVM Constants API
• JEP 340: One AArch64 Port, Not Two
• JEP 341: Default CDS Archives
• JEP 344: Abortable Mixed Collections for G1
• JEP 346: Promptly Return Unused Committed Memory from G1

The preview feature JEP 325 extends the switch statement so it can also be used as an expression, and adds a new form of case label where the right hand side is an expression. No break statement is needed. For complex expressions a yield statement can be used. This becomes standard in Java SE 14.

int ndays = switch(month) {
    case JAN, MAR, MAY, JUL, AUG, OCT, DEC -> 31;
    case APR, JUN, SEP, NOV -> 30;
    case FEB -> {
        if (year % 400 == 0) yield 29;
        else if (year % 100 == 0) yield 28;
        else if (year % 4 == 0) yield 29;
        else yield 28; }
};

Java 12 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 12	2019-03-19	Initial release
Java SE 12.0.1	2019-04-16	New Japanese Era Name & Security fixes
Java SE 12.0.2	2019-07-16	Removed some root CA certificates

Java SE 13

Java SE 13

Released	September 17, 2019 (2019-09-17)
# of JEPs	5
Addition(s)
Preview(s)	Enhanced switch statements, text blocks

JDK 13 was released on September 17, 2019. Java 13 includes the following new features, as well as "hundreds of smaller enhancements and thousands of bug fixes".

• JEP 350: Dynamic CDS Archives
• JEP 351: ZGC: Uncommit Unused Memory
• JEP 353: Reimplement the Legacy Socket API
• JEP 354: Switch Expressions (Preview)
• JEP 355: Text Blocks (Preview)

JEP 355 Text Blocks allows multiline string literals:

String html = """
              <html lang="en">
                  <body>
                      <p>Hello, world</p>
                  </body>
              </html>
              """;

Java 13 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 13	2019-09-17	General Availability Release
Java SE 13.0.1	2019-10-15	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 13.0.2	2020-01-14	Security & bug fixes

Java SE 14

Java SE 14

Released	March 17, 2020 (2020-03-17)
# of JEPs	16
Addition(s)
Notable	Helpful NullPointerExceptions, enhanced switch statements
Preview(s)	Pattern matching for instanceof, records, text blocks
Incubating	jpackager, Foreign memory access
Removal(s)
Notable	Remove Concurrent Mark Sweep garbage collector

JDK 14 was released on March 17, 2020. Java 14 includes the following new features, as well as "hundreds of smaller enhancements and thousands of bug fixes".

• JEP 305: Pattern Matching for instanceof (Preview)
• JEP 343: Packaging Tool (Incubator)
• JEP 345: NUMA-Aware Memory Allocation for G1
• JEP 349: JFR Event Streaming
• JEP 352: Non-Volatile Mapped Byte Buffers
• JEP 358: Helpful NullPointerExceptions
• JEP 359: Records (Preview)
• JEP 361: Switch Expressions (Standard)
• JEP 362: Deprecate the Solaris and SPARC Ports
• JEP 363: Remove the Concurrent Mark Sweep (CMS) Garbage Collector
• JEP 364: ZGC on macOS
• JEP 365: ZGC on Windows
• JEP 366: Deprecate the ParallelScavenge + SerialOld GC Combination
• JEP 367: Remove the Pack200 Tools and API
• JEP 368: Text Blocks (Second Preview)
• JEP 370: Foreign-Memory Access API (Incubator)

JEP 305, Pattern Matching for instanceof simplifies the common case of an instanceof test being immediately followed by cast, replacing

if (obj instanceof String) {
    String s = (String) obj;
    System.out.println( s.length() );
}

with

if (obj instanceof String s) {
    System.out.println( s.length() );
}

JEP 359 Records allows easy creation of simple immutable Tuple-like classes.

record Point(int x, int y) { }
Point p = new Point(3,4);
System.out.println( p.x() );

Java 14 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 14	2020-03-17	General Availability Release
Java SE 14.0.1	2020-04-14	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 14.0.2	2020-07-14	Security & bug fixes

Java SE 15

Java SE 15

Released	September 15, 2020 (2020-09-15)
# of JEPs	14
Addition(s)
Notable	Hidden classes, ZGC (garbage collector), Shenandoah (garbage collector), text blocks
Preview(s)	Sealed classes, pattern matching of instanceof, records
Incubating	Foreign-memory access
Removal(s)
Notable	JavaScript engine, Solaris and SPARC ports

JDK 15 was released on September 15, 2020. Java 15 adds e.g. support for multi-line string literals (aka Text Blocks). The Shenandoah and Z garbage collectors (latter sometimes abbreviated ZGC) are now ready for use in production (i.e. no longer marked experimental). Support for Oracle's Solaris operating system (and SPARC CPUs) is dropped (while still available in e.g. Java 11). The Nashorn JavaScript Engine is removed. Also removed some root CA certificates.

• JEP 339: Edwards-Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA)
• JEP 360: Sealed Classes (Preview)
• JEP 371: Hidden Classes
• JEP 372: Remove the Nashorn JavaScript Engine
• JEP 373: Reimplement the Legacy DatagramSocket API
• JEP 374: Disable and Deprecate Biased Locking
• JEP 375: Pattern Matching for instanceof (Second Preview)
• JEP 377: ZGC: A Scalable Low-Latency Garbage Collector
• JEP 378: Text Blocks
• JEP 379: Shenandoah: A Low-Pause-Time Garbage Collector
• JEP 381: Remove the Solaris and SPARC Ports
• JEP 383: Foreign-Memory Access API (Second Incubator)
• JEP 384: Records (Second Preview)
• JEP 385: Deprecate RMI Activation for Removal

JEP 360 Sealed Classes adds sealed classes and interfaces that restrict which other classes or interfaces may extend or implement them. Only those classes specified in a permits clause may extend the class or interface.

package com.example.geometry;

public abstract sealed class Shape
    permits Circle, Rectangle, Square {...}

Together with records, sealed classes are sum types. They work well with other recent features like records, switch expressions, and pattern matching for instance-of. They all form part of a system for "Pattern matching in Java" first discussed by Gavin Bierman and Brian Goetz, in September 2018.

Java 15 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 15	2020-09-15	General Availability Release
Java SE 15.0.1	2020-10-20	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 15.0.2	2021-01-19	Security & bug fixes

Java SE 16

Java SE 16

Released	March 16, 2021 (2021-03-16)
# of JEPs	17
Addition(s)
Notable	Windows/AArch64 Port, jpackager, pattern matching for instanceof, records
Preview(s)	Sealed classes
Incubating	Foreign linker, Foreign-memory access

JDK 16 was released on March 16, 2021. Java 16 removes Ahead-of-Time compilation (and Graal JIT) options. The Java implementation itself was and is still written in C++, while as of Java 16, more recent C++14 (but still not e.g. C++17 or C++20) is allowed. The code was also moved to GitHub, dropping Mercurial as the source control system.

• JEP 338: Vector API (Incubator)
• JEP 347: Enable C++14 Language Features
• JEP 357: Migrate from Mercurial to Git
• JEP 369: Migrate to GitHub
• JEP 376: ZGC: Concurrent Thread-Stack Processing
• JEP 380: Unix-Domain Socket Channels
• JEP 386: Alpine Linux Port – not yet stable
• JEP 387: Elastic Metaspace
• JEP 388: Windows/AArch64 Port
• JEP 389: Foreign Linker API (Incubator)
• JEP 390: Warnings for Value-Based Classes
• JEP 392: Packaging Tool
• JEP 393: Foreign-Memory Access API (Third Incubator)
• JEP 394: Pattern Matching for instanceof
• JEP 395: Records
• JEP 396: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals by Default
• JEP 397: Sealed Classes (Second Preview)

Java 16 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 16	2021-03-16	General-Availability Release
Java SE 16.0.1	2021-04-20	Timezone database update, bug fixes, and security updates
Java SE 16.0.2	2021-07-20	Security & bug fixes

Java SE 17

Java SE 17

LTS version
Released	September 14, 2021 (2021-09-14)
# of JEPs	14
Addition(s)
Notable	macOS/AArch64 Port, sealed classes
Preview(s)	Switch pattern matching
Incubating	Vector API, Foreign function & memory API
Removal(s)
Notable	AOT compiler, RMI activation, strictfp keyword made obsolete (PEP 306)

JDK 17 is the current long-term support (LTS) release since September 2021. Java 17 is the 2nd long-term support (LTS) release since switching to the new 6-month release cadence (the first being Java 11).

• JEP 306: Restore Always-Strict Floating-Point Semantics
• JEP 356: Enhanced Pseudo-Random Number Generators
• JEP 382: New macOS Rendering Pipeline
• JEP 391: macOS/AArch64 Port
• JEP 398: Deprecate the Applet API for Removal
• JEP 403: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals
• JEP 406: Pattern Matching for switch (Preview)
• JEP 407: Remove RMI Activation
• JEP 409: Sealed Classes
• JEP 410: Remove the Experimental AOT and JIT Compiler
• JEP 411: Deprecate the Security Manager for Removal
• JEP 412: Foreign Function & Memory API (Incubator)
• JEP 414: Vector API (Second Incubator)
• JEP 415: Context-Specific Deserialization Filters

JEP 406 extends the pattern matching syntax used in instanceof operations to switch statements and expressions. It allows cases to be selected based on the type of the argument, null cases and refining patterns

Object o = ...;
return switch (o) {
        case null       -> "Null";
        case String s   -> String.format("String %s", s);
        case Long l     -> String.format("long %d", l);
        case Double d   -> String.format("double %f", d);
        case Integer i && i > 0                            // refining patterns
                        -> String.format("positive int %d", i);
        case Integer i && i ==0 
                        -> String.format("zero int %d", i);
        case Integer i && i < 0 
                        -> String.format("negative int %d", i);
        default         -> o.toString();
    };
};

Java 17 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 17	2021-09-14	General-Availability Release: Long-term support
Java SE 17.0.1+12	2021-10-19	Removed IdenTrust Root Certificate, Release Doesn't Correctly Recognize Windows 11, System Property to Control Reconstruction of Reference Address Objects by JDK's Built-in JNDI LDAP Implementation, Release Doesn't Correctly Recognize Windows Server 2022, security fixes, 21 bug fixes
Java SE 17.0.2+8	2022-01-18	Removed Google's GlobalSign Root Certificate, 164 bug fixes
Java SE 17.0.3	2022-04-19	New XML processing limits, Only Expose Certificates With Proper Trust Settings as Trusted Certificate Entries in macOS KeychainStore, Restricted Parsing of URL Strings in Built-in JNDI Providers, 48 bug fixes
Java SE 17.0.4+11	2022-07-19	HTTPS Channel Binding Support for Java GSS/Kerberos, Update java.net.InetAddress to Detect Ambiguous IPv4 Address Literals, Default JDK Compressor Will Be Closed when IOException Is Encountered, CPU Shares Ignored When Computing Active Processor Count, 60 bug fixes
Java SE 17.0.5+9	2022-10-18	Disabled SHA-1 Signed JARs, Make HttpURLConnection Default Keep Alive Timeout Configurable, Update Timezone Data to 2022c, 77 bug fixes

Java SE 18

Java SE 18

Released	March 22, 2022 (2022-03-22)
# of JEPs	9
Addition(s)
Notable	UTF by default Javadoc code snippets
Preview(s)	Switch pattern matching
Incubating	Vector API Foreign function & memory API
Removal(s)
Notable	Deprecated finalization for removal

JDK 18 was released on March 22, 2022.

• JEP 400: UTF-8 by Default
• JEP 408: Simple Web Server
• JEP 413: Code Snippets in Java API Documentation
• JEP 416: Reimplement Core Reflection with Method Handles
• JEP 417: Vector API (Third Incubator)
• JEP 418: Internet-Address Resolution SPI
• JEP 419: Foreign Function & Memory API (Second Incubator)
• JEP 420: Pattern Matching for switch (Second Preview)
• JEP 421: Deprecate Finalization for Removal

Java 18 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 18	2022-03-22	General-Availability Release
Java SE 18.0.1	2022-04-19	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 18.0.1.1	2022-05-06	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 18.0.2	2022-07-19	Security & bug fixes
Java SE 18.0.2.1	2022-08-18	Fixes a regression in the C2 JIT compiler (see JDK-8292260)

Java SE 19

Java SE 19

Released	September 20, 2022 (2022-09-20)
# of JEPs	7
Addition(s)
Preview(s)	Foreign function & memory API Switch pattern matching
Incubating	Vector API Structured concurrency

JDK 19 was released on 20 September 2022.

• JEP 405: Record Patterns (Preview)
• JEP 422: Linux/RISC-V Port
• JEP 424: Foreign Function & Memory API (Preview)
• JEP 425: Virtual Threads (Preview)
• JEP 426: Vector API (Fourth Incubator)
• JEP 427: Pattern Matching for switch (Third Preview)
• JEP 428: Structured Concurrency (Incubator)

Jep 405 allows record patterns, extending the pattern matching capabilities of instanceof operators, and switch expressions, to include record patterns that explicitly refer to the components of the record.

record Rectangle(int x, int y, int w, int h) {}

int area(Object o) {
    if (o instanceof Rectangle(int x, int y, int w, int h)) {
        return w * h;
    }
    return 0;
}

Such patterns can include nested patterns, where the components of records are themselves records, allowing patterns to match more object graphs.

Java 19 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Java SE 19	2022-09-20	General-Availability Release

Java SE 20

Java SE 20

Releasing	March 21, 2023 (2023-03-21)
# of JEPs	6
Addition(s)
Incubating	Scoped values, Structured concurrency

As of September 2022, the specification for Java 20 has not yet been finalized. Java 20 is scheduled for release in March 2023.

• JEP 429: Scoped Values (Incubator)
• JEP 432: Record Patterns (Second Preview)
• JEP 433: Pattern Matching for switch (Fourth Preview)
• JEP 434: Foreign Function & Memory API (Second Preview)
• JEP 436: Virtual Threads (Second Preview)
• JEP 437: Structured Concurrency (Second Incubator)

Java 20 updates

Release	Release date	Highlights
Latest Build	2023-03-21	Early-Access Builds: Build 15 (2022-09-15)

Future features

• Project Valhalla: Value types, objects without identity but with an efficient memory layout and leading to better results of escape analysis.
• Project Panama: Improved interoperability with native code, to enable Java source code to call functions and use data types from other languages, in a way that is easier and has better performance than today. Vector API (a portable and relatively low-level abstraction layer for SIMD programming) is also developed under Project Panama umbrella.
• Project Loom: Virtual threads, a lightweight user-mode scheduled alternative to standard OS managed threads. Virtual threads are mapped to OS threads in a many-to-many relationship, in contrast to the many-to-one relationship from the original green threads implementation in early versions of Java.

Implementations

The officially supported Java platform, first developed at Sun and now stewarded by Oracle, is Java SE. Releases are based on the OpenJDK project, a free and open-source project with an open development model. Other Java implementations exist, however—in part due to Java's early history as proprietary software. In contrast, some implementations were created to offer some benefits over the standard implementation, often the result of some area of academic or corporate-sponsored research. Many Linux distributions include builds of OpenJDK through the IcedTea project started by Red Hat, which provides a more straightforward build and integration environment.

Visual J++ and the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine were created as incompatible implementations. After the Sun v. Microsoft lawsuit, Microsoft abandoned it and began work on the .NET platform. In 2021, Microsoft started distributing compatible "Microsoft Build of OpenJDK" for Java 11 first then also for Java 17. Their builds support not only Windows, but also Linux and macOS.

Other proprietary Java implementations are available, such as Azul's Zing. Azul offers certified open source OpenJDK builds under the Zulu moniker.

Prior to the release of OpenJDK, while Sun's implementation was still proprietary, the GNU Classpath project was created to provide a free and open-source implementation of the Java platform. Since the release of JDK 7, when OpenJDK became the official reference implementation, the original motivation for the GNU Classpath project almost completely disappeared, and its last release was in 2012.

The Apache Harmony project was started shortly before the release of OpenJDK. After Sun's initial source code release, the Harmony project continued, working to provide an implementation under a lax license, in contrast to the protective license chosen for OpenJDK. Google later developed Android and released it under a lax license. Android incorporated parts of the Harmony project, supplemented with Google's own Dalvik virtual machine and ART. Apache Harmony has since been retired, and Google has switched its Harmony components with equivalent ones from OpenJDK.

Both Jikes and Jikes RVM are open-source research projects that IBM developed.

Several other implementations exist that started as proprietary software but are now open source. IBM initially developed OpenJ9 as the proprietary J9 but has since relicensed the project and donated it to the Eclipse Foundation. JRockit is a proprietary implementation that was acquired by Oracle and incorporated into subsequent OpenJDK versions.

External links

• Official Java SE Downloads
• Early history of Java
• Sun Java Supported versions and EOL
• Downloads archive for older version of Java
• JDK Releases
• The Java Version Almanac