Java application developers and IT professionals are deciding whether to renew their Oracle Java SE subscriptions for commercial support and Oracle JDK licensing. The costs can be debilitating if they don’t understand their options and whether they should change to another Java distribution.
In January 2023, Oracle quietly updated its pricing for Oracle Java SE to an employee-based model. The new price list uses a hypothetical company of 28,000 employees (including contractors and part-time employees) to demonstrate how the Java bill would come to just over $2.2 million per year – regardless of how many employees actually use Java. It was Oracle’s fourth Java licensing and pricing change in just four years.
Just months later, 82% of participants in the Azul State of Java Survey and Report expressed concern about Oracle’s pricing model change and 72% said they were actively looking at other Java distributions.
Java is a foundation of business-critical software applications for nearly all large enterprises, and organizations need information they can trust to make such a critical decision.
An OpenJDK comparison guide you can trust
A 2025 revision of The Oracle Renewal vs OpenJDK Comparison Guide explores your options for selecting a Java Development Kit (JDK) for your applications and compares the most popular distributions’ features, functionality, and commercial support services.
The guide compares Azul, Oracle Java SE, Amazon Corretto, Microsoft OpenJDK, Red Hat OpenJDK, and Eclipse Temurin. You can get a description of each distribution, plus easy-to-read charts with unbiased comparison information.
Visit our website and download The Oracle Renewal vs OpenJDK Comparison Guide.
