We are happy to announce that the new Liberica Native Image Kit (NIK) 22.0.0.2 is now generally available. In addition, we improved the previous version and released NIK 21.3.1. We will provide security update releases for the NIK-21.3 branch throughout 2022. We plan to provide similar support for NIK-22.3 throughout 2023. These update releases will occur four times a year and will be synchronized with JDK update releases.
Now, let’s see what’s inside the new builds!
Why you should use Liberica NIK
If you are only getting acquainted with native image technology, let us first explain what Liberica Native Kit is all about and how you can benefit from integrating it into your project.
Liberica NIK is a GraalVM-based technology that converts a JVM-based application into a native executable, which contains the application, dependencies, and runtime components to run the app on any supported platform without installing the runtime. NIK provides:
- Almost instant startup (1/10 second);
- Optimized resource consumption;
- Minimal static footprint;
- Opportunity to create multilingual microservices thanks to a wide range of supported platforms and programming languages;
- Tiny containers running at high speed, thus accelerating deployment and reducing cloud expenses;
- Support for OpenJFX (full builds of NIK only).
In addition, Liberica NIK is based on LTS JDK versions, so you’ll get 8-year access to bug fixes and improvements.
Summary of fixes and improvements
Liberica NIK 22.0.0.2 contains several enhancements:
- We added support for OpenJFX in Liberica NIK for MacOS, so now you can develop rich JavaFX apps on your Mac;
native-imageis now included by default in all NIK flavors. There is no need to runguto install it anymore.
Both released versions of Liberica NIK contain the latest version of Liberica JDK with a number of fixes and solved security issues.
Growing momentum of Liberica NIK with Spring Native
In September 2021, we announced a support agreement with our partner, VMWare. It meant that VMWare customers using Liberica NIK could run Spring apps as native executables and receive full-fledged support. In addition, NIK is fully compatible with Spring Native — a recent addition to the Spring framework ecosystem that allows the compilation of Spring Boot applications into native executables.
But Native Image Kit keeps fortifying its positions in the Spring world. As of Spring Native 0.11, it is used by default for Buildpacks native support.
Conclusion
BellSoft constantly works on improving the security and performance of its products. Future enhancements of Liberica Native Image Kit will include added AWT/Swing support for Windows and macOS and improved GC functionality. As for now, download the latest builds of Liberica NIK and enjoy all the benefits of native image technology!
