May 2026 marks the largest release in Payara’s history: Azul Payara Server 7 and Azul Payara Micro 7 are now generally available, certified against Jakarta EE 11 – the first commercially supported Jakarta EE 11 runtimes from a major enterprise vendor, and part of a broader story about what Azul is building for enterprise Java.
A Complete Enterprise Java Stack Under One Roof
The acquisition of Payara by Azul in December 2025 was the final piece of a deliberate strategy to offer enterprise Java teams everything they need from a single vendor. With Payara 7, Azul now covers the full stack: the JDK (Azul Core and Azul Prime), the application server (Azul Payara Server), and the cloud-native microservices runtime (Azul Payara Micro). For customers on either side of the acquisition, that means one contract, one support team, and one monthly release cadence – backed by 24–48-hour bug fix SLAs and 2-hour critical incident response.
Why Does Jakarta EE 11 Certification Matter?
Azul Payara 7 holds Final TCK certification across all three Jakarta EE 11 profiles – Full Platform, Web Profile, and Core Profile. No other major enterprise application server vendor can say the same.
For development teams, this translates directly into access to modern APIs – most notably Jakarta Data, which introduces the @Repository annotation and a standardized data access layer.
Moving to Azul Payara 7
Upgrading from Payara 6 to Payara 7 is easier than you might expect. The jakarta.* namespace is stable between Jakarta EE 10 and EE 11, which means existing Payara 6 applications deploy to Payara 7 by upgrading the runtime – no code changes required. JDK 21 is the minimum supported version, with Docker images available for both JDK 21 and the latest long-term support (LTS) release, JDK 25. The same .war runs on both Server and Micro without modification.
What about Existing Payara 4, 5, and 6 Deployments?
All supported branches receive updates this cycle, including a critical security fix. Payara 6.38.0 continues Jakarta EE 10 support with bug fixes and Docker image refreshes. Payara 5.87.0 retains the javax.* namespace for teams not yet migrated. And Payara 4.1.2.191.55 still receives security updates and targeted bug fixes for long-running legacy deployments.
Ready to Upgrade?
We recommend upgrading to the latest release in this cycle regardless of which major version you run – a critical security patch is available across every supported branch. For detailed upgrade instructions, see the Payara Platform documentation.
For commercial support or a migration assessment to Payara 7, reach out to our Technical Consultants here.