For all of us at BellSoft, 2024 was a year of valuable collaborations, memorable engagements, and remarkable accomplishments. As we continue to innovate and evolve, we are proud to share the milestones we’ve reached, the lessons we’ve learned, and the exciting initiatives we have ahead. In this article, I’ll walk you through the key achievements of 2024 and give a glimpse of what we’re planning for 2025.
2024: A Year of Milestone Releases
Committed to Providing the Most Complete Java Experience
At BellSoft, our mission has always been clear: to provide developers and enterprises with the most complete Java experience. This translates into empowering them with the tools they need to unlock the full potential of Java applications—on any platform, with any JDK version.
In 2024, we reached key milestones in this journey:
- Adding Support for RISC-V: Recognizing the rapid growth of RISC-V, we expanded Liberica JDK to support this innovative and rapidly evolving architecture.
- Adding Support for 64-bit Arm: Both Alpaquita Linux and Liberica JDK Performance Edition now fully support AArch64, ensuring enhanced performance and compatibility on Arm-based hardware.
Committed to Bringing Better Performance to All Java Versions
At BellSoft, improving Java performance is a cornerstone of our philosophy. In 2024, we achieved a major milestone: completing our suite of performance solutions for every Java version.
For JDK 11 and older: In 2023, we introduced Liberica JDK Performance Edition for JDK 11. This year, we expanded the line with Liberica JDK Performance Edition for JDK 8 - a fully open-source fused JDK that integrates JVM 17 into JDK 8 and 11. This solution delivers up to 10-15% performance improvements by leveraging JVM 17 features.Modern garbage collectors like ZGC and Shenandoah GC significantly reduce latency, while the default G1 GC contributes to better throughput and lower latency. Enhanced zlib enables super-fast compression and decompression. All of this is possible without changing your stack or dependencies, while staying 100% open-source.
For JDK 17 and later: Developers using the latest Java versions can now benefit from:
- Liberica Native Image Kit: A GraalVM-based tool for creating native executables and bringing the startup time to near zero.
- Coordinated Restore at Checkpoint (CRaC) Project: This year, we extended CRaC support to Alpaquita Containers, offering containerized Java applications a ready-to-use solution for dramatically reducing startup and warmup times to milliseconds
Strong and Steady Growth
2024 was a fruitful year for BellSoft’s business. Our innovative releases and strategic business approach translated directly into outstanding growth. The number of our customers doubled, and the revenue of Liberica JDK increased twofold, compared to the previous year.
We are excited to see our products gaining more traction in 2024:
- Liberica JDK saw its user base double this year.
- Alpaquita Containers experienced an even more impressive increase, tripling its user base, and surpassing 1 million downloads from Docker Hub!
- Alpaquita Linux, our minimal Linux distribution for containers, celebrated its second anniversary, achieving a 50% growth in its user base.
These milestones reflect the growing trust in our solutions and the increasing adoption of BellSoft technologies worldwide.
Growing Our Developer Advocacy Team
As our community continues to grow, so does our team of Developer Advocates.
Our Performance Architect, Dmitry Chuyko, has been leading BellSoft’s Developer Relations from the very beginning. This year, our Developer Advocacy team expanded with two new members: Pasha Finkelshteyn, an experienced software engineer and Advocate for Java and Kotlin, and Catherine Edelveis, who has been with BellSoft for several years and recently stepped into the limelight as part of our Developer Advocacy team.
With this expansion of our DevRel team, we continued strengthening the connection with the community, bringing renewed energy. As part of this, we relaunched our YouTube channel, where Catherine now posts weekly video tutorials and guides. We invite you to subscribe and stay updated with our content.
Additionally, you may have seen our DevRel team on various livestreams and webinars, where we foster collaboration with our partners, friends, and colleagues, and continue building meaningful connections within the community.
Sharing Knowledge Globally
We love exchanging knowledge and experiences with the Java community, and this year, the conversation was truly sparking! Our team attended many conferences across the globe, the most memorable of them being: Devoxx Belgium, Spring I/O, and KubeCon + Cloud Native Con in Paris, Hong Kong, and Salt Lake City.
But that’s not all. For those who can’t attend conferences or local JUG meetups, we continue sharing knowledge through our blog, regularly publishing new articles on Java. As mentioned earlier, we’re also adding video content to engage our community in fresh and dynamic ways. I encourage you to reach out to our team and let us know on what topics you’d like us to create videos or articles in 2025. You can find us on all major social media platforms.
Follow us on
- X: https://x.com/bellsoftware
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bellsoft.bsky.social
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bell-sw
Key Challenges and Trends in Java Development
At Devoxx Belgium, BellSoft conducted the Java Developer Survey to explore key challenges and trends in Java development.
The results showed that a large number of developers see room for improvement in Java application performance, with 73% believing it could be enhanced. Additionally, 58% pointed out that business managers often overlook Java's potential to reduce cloud costs.
The survey also revealed a growing trend in AI tool usage for code writing, with 74% of developers adopting these technologies. Moreover, 18% highlighted the increasing importance of "green Java.”
You can read the full report here. Some of the findings are surprising and insightful, offering a deeper understanding of the current needs of Java developers.
Looking Forward to 2025
In 2025, Java will celebrate its 30th anniversary. Despite its age, Java continues to be one of the most popular programming languages, proving its enduring relevance in the ever-evolving tech landscape.
At BellSoft, we remain fully committed to driving innovation, improving the developer experience, and making development and deployment easier and faster.
I would like to thank our partners, customers, and users for their continued trust and support.
Together, we’ve accomplished so much, and we’re excited to see what we’ll achieve in the coming year. I’m looking forward to 2025!
