A recent survey conducted by Azul indicates that 88% of enterprises are considering alternatives to Oracle Java due to escalating costs and associated concerns.
The Azul 2025 State of Java Survey & Report provides insights from over 2,000 Java professionals globally, exploring trends in how organisations are leveraging Java in response to changing technological landscapes. Major areas of concern include the cost of Oracle Java, handling cloud expenses, DevOps productivity challenges, and Java's role in artificial intelligence development.
The survey reveals that 99% of the participating organisations actively use Java, with nearly 70% of respondents noting that Java or Java Virtual Machine (JVM) supports more than half of their applications. This reaffirms Java's significant role in current business infrastructures.
According to the report, dissatisfaction with Oracle Java's cost structure has been steadily increasing. Since Oracle introduced employee-based pricing for Oracle Java SE, 82% of users highlight discomfort with the current pricing model, a figure consistent with the previous survey conducted in 2023. The proportion of businesses contemplating a shift from Oracle Java has risen from 72% in 2023 to 88% in the current report.
Additionally, organisations identified several reasons for considering a move away from Oracle Java. Cost was cited by 42% of respondents, while 40% expressed a preference for open-source solutions. Oracle's sales tactics and the ongoing changes to pricing and licensing were each a concern for 37% and 36% of respondents, respectively. Restrictive policies were noted by 33% as a problem.
Cloud cost management remains a challenge, with nearly two-thirds of organisations reporting that Java workloads constitute more than half of their cloud computing expenses. A significant 71% of companies revealed that they have over 20% unused cloud compute capacity, on which they are still incurring costs. To address these inefficiencies, some organisations are opting for newer, efficient compute resources and high-performance Java Development Kits (JDKs), helping to improve application performance and optimise cloud costs.
The impact on DevOps productivity due to unmanaged code and security issues is also highlighted. A significant 62% of surveyed professionals reported that obsolete or unused code is hampering the effectiveness of their DevOps teams. Security concerns add to the difficulty, with 33% identifying that over half their time is spent addressing potential security vulnerabilities, particularly due to Java-related false positives. Additionally, 49% of companies report ongoing security issues stemming from the Log4j vulnerability, initially discovered three years prior.
Java's influence in the development of artificial intelligence is also considerable. Fifty per cent of the surveyed organisations indicated using Java for building AI functionalities, surpassing the use of other languages like Python and JavaScript in Java-focused enterprises. This trend is resulting in 72% of organisations anticipating a need to enhance their compute capacity to support Java-based AI applications.
Scott Sellers, Co-Founder and CEO of Azul, commented: "Our report shows organisations are actively seeking ways to optimise their Java deployments to drive operational efficiency and cost predictability. As Java continues to be the backbone for business-critical applications in the enterprise, we're seeing important trends — from the growing interest in Oracle Java alternatives to cloud optimisation strategies, improvements in DevOps productivity, and innovation with AI."
