I've been working with Java and Kotlin for a while, and I've just used whatever JDK was available for my projects. Recently, when creating a Java project in IntelliJ, I noticed a list of JDK vendors like Amazon Corretto, Azul Zulu, GraalVM, JetBrains, and Microsoft OpenJDK, even for the same version, for example, v25. I'm curious about how these vendors differ from each other. Are there specific use cases or licenses to consider? From what I understand, the JDK essentially combines the JRE (JVM) with development tools and libraries. So, how do these vendors create different JDKs? Do some have extra tools or libraries, and can I use any of these JDKs for any project without worrying about licensing, especially for commercial use?
2 Answers
Yeah, it can get pretty tricky! When it comes to JDKs, they're mostly packaged versions of OpenJDK, so they share the same core. Differences often come down to things like how well they perform, their support options, and extra features they might offer. For most development tasks, you can't go wrong with either Amazon Corretto or Eclipse Adoptium Temurin — they're both free and work well without the licensing headaches of Oracle's JDK. Just avoid the old Oracle JDK if commercial use is a concern.
Good question! The Java language is specified by a set of standards, which anyone can implement. That means companies like Oracle, Azul, and Microsoft can create their own versions of the JDK based on the reference implementation from Oracle. So all those vendors offer their versions of Java, usually built on the OpenJDK base, but with some variations in performance, support, and additional features. For casual development, any of them should work fine as long as you're using the same Java version. But later on, you might care about things like performance tweaks or long-term support. For instance, GraalVM is cool if you need native compilation for cloud environments, while Amazon Corretto and Temurin are solid choices for general use without any licensing worries.
Thanks for the clarification! So, as long as I stick with those options, I should be good to go?