Executive Summary:

Following through on announcements made in 2022 and progress made since then, Oracle is announcing the following Java SE Product roadmap updates related to GraalVM:

  • The GraalVM team are transitioning to focus on non-Java Graal Languages including GraalPy and GraalJS. Details are expected to be announced later.
  • GraalVM for JDK 24 was the final GraalVM release licensed and supported as part of Oracle Java SE Products. Customers requiring further updates to legacy GraalVM versions should download them via Oracle Support.
  • Oracle JDK 24 was the final release to include the experimental and optional Graal JIT.
  • GraalVM Early Adopter technology, including Native Image, is being discontinued for Java SE Product customers. The goals of improving the startup time, time to peak performance, and footprint of Java programs are being pursued further in OpenJDK’s Project Leyden as a standard part of Java. Customers seeking more information should reach out to Oracle Support.
  • We encourage any customers using the Graal JIT to migrate to the Oracle JDK JIT. Java SE Product customers may reach out to Oracle Support for migration-related assistance.

History:

Oracle has a long and successful history of integrating improvements to core JVM technology into the JDK’s HotSpot Java Virtual Machine. After acquiring BEA in 2008, and Sun Microsystems in 2010, Oracle successfully integrated relevant technologies from the JRockit JVM into Hotspot, which has become the core JVM for the entire Java ecosystem today.

In 2022, the Oracle Labs GraalVM team announced a plan to align the development of GraalVM technologies with that of Java. This followed nearly a decade of research and dozens of experimental and conceptual technology POCs (proofs of concept). After a year of effort, the GraalVM team adopted the Java release cadence to ensure that the GraalVM technology kept pace with ongoing innovation in the Java Platform. A year later, Oracle included the Graal JIT as an option in the Oracle JDK to make it easier for Oracle JDK users to provide feedback. Meanwhile, we have learned which Graal JIT optimizations work well broadly, and the work on Native Image has informed OpenJDK’s Project Leyden. Based on the work, feedback, and results gathered over the three years since we began to align the GraalVM technologies with Java, as well as progress made in Project Leyden, Oracle has concluded that the time has come to focus our future Java runtime efforts.

Guidance:

GraalVM users interested in Java technology are encouraged to transition to Oracle JDK or Oracle OpenJDK releases. Users interested in ahead-of-time performance features are encouraged to transition to Oracle JDK 25 and explore the benefits of JEP 514 (Ahead-of-Time Command-Line Ergonomics) and JEP 515 (Ahead-of-Time Method Profiling). Work already underway in Project Leyden includes Ahead-of-Time Code Compilation (JEP draft). Oracle customers using the Graal JIT, either in a GraalVM distribution or as part of the integration in Oracle JDK 23 and 24, are encouraged to use the default C2 JIT instead. Customers experiencing issues or having specific questions should reach out to Oracle Support.