“Azul provides a well-supported, reliable and secure Java JDK and runtime that we use in many of SAS Institute’s products and solutions. The satisfaction of thousands of SAS customers demonstrates the quality of the Azul Platform.”
The comparison table below summarizes how Azul Platform Core offers significant advantages over the free builds of OpenJDK.
Azul Platform Core provides a secure, stable, and affordable option for enterprises seeking to ensure operational stability, enhance security and compliance, achieve cost efficiencies and guarantee their IP is free from contaminating software for their critical Java infrastructure.
| Azul Platform Core | Free OpenJDK | |
|---|---|---|
|
Industry-standard for commercial support |
Commercial support across all public clouds. Includes production and nonproduction support. o Security-only builds (CPUs) via SLA o Deep-root cause analysis on issues o Expert consulting on moving to new Java releases o Deep dives on performance, garbage collection, log analysis o Security briefings with CTO Gil Tene, Deputy CTO Simon Ritter and VP Pratik Patel • 100+ full-time engineers working on OpenJDK with an average experience of 7+ years within Azul alone. • 24x7x365 support from dedicated Java experts (via web, email & phone) |
No such offerings. |
|
Security |
• Azul is committed to timely delivery of both security-only updates (CPUs) and full updates (PSUs). The breadth and depth of Azul’s Java engineering team is key to our track record of meeting SLAs for security-only updates. • To date, Azul’s CPUs have never experienced a regression. • Azul is committed to backporting all the fixes from every quarterly update (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct) to all supported versions. • This ensures that applications running on Java 6, 7, 8 , 11, 17 and 21 will remain stable and secure. |
• PSUs are available on a best-effort basis. • Quarterly PSU updates regularly require additional, out-of-cycle bug fixes to by new builds. These issues can interrupt business operations. For example, Hadoop clusters and Solr/Lucerne were unable to run after the 8u262 update. |
|
Variety of supported platforms & configurations |
• Azul supports major flavors of Linux, Windows, macOS, Solaris, QNX, AIX, etc. • Azul supports Arm 32/64, x86/64, MIPS 32, PPC 32/64, SPARC architectures. • Azul supports Zulu builds of the JDK and JRE as well as JDK FX and JRE FX. |
• Free OpenJDK distributions have a limited selection of JDK configurations. |
|
Java version support |
6 versions of Java, including: • Java 6 until December 2027 • Java 7 until December 2027 • Java 8 until December 2030 • Java 11 until January 2032 • Java 17 until September 2029 • Java 21 until September 2031 |
OpenJDK doesn’t provide updates for Java 6 and Java 7 and has much shorter support timeline for other versions of Java. |
|
IP protection |
Patent and Non-Contamination Indemnification |
No such offering. |
|
Other offerings |
Azul Platform Prime is a highly optimized JVM and elastic runtime that improves application performance and reduces cloud waste. Performance benchmarks: • 26% faster on AWS Graviton 3 vs. OpenJDK • 18% faster on Graviton 2 vs. OpenJDK
|
No such offerings. |
“Azul provides a well-supported, reliable and secure Java JDK and runtime that we use in many of SAS Institute’s products and solutions. The satisfaction of thousands of SAS customers demonstrates the quality of the Azul Platform.”
“Having a product that I don’t have to adjust and change and modify and work with and turn a bunch of switches and dials, has been great, and the support has been excellent. The best that I’ve ever dealt with.”
