2025 was a year of growth, collaboration, and communication. This was a year marked not just by technical milestones, but by the deepening relationships with our community, the exceptional work of everyone at BellSoft, and the collaborative spirit of our partners.
To our team, our partners, and everyone in the Java community who has been part of this journey: thank you. Your expertise, feedback, and collaboration have been the foundation of everything we've achieved this year.
Three Decades with Java
This year, Java celebrated its 30th anniversary—a milestone that's deeply personal for us at BellSoft. Some members of our team—Aleksey, Valery, and Peter—worked at Sun Microsystems building the JDK itself, and still have Java 1.0-era commemorative plaques on their shelves.
To mark this occasion, we released a mini-series where we unwind Java 23 code all the way back to Java 1.0. It resonated with developers who remember those early days, and reminded all of us why we fell in love with this language.
If you haven't watched it yet, check out the series—it's a fun journey through Java's evolution and how the developer experience has transformed.
Building the Most Complete Java Experience
Our mission has always been clear: deliver the most complete Java experience. When developing our products, we focus on three core pillars—performance, security, and reliability. This year, we made significant strides toward that goal.
Java 25 and the Path Forward
With the release of Java 25 LTS, the Java ecosystem took another major step forward. An important milestone this year was GraalVM being detached from the Java release train in September 2025—a significant shift in the ecosystem.
Performance That Matters
Performance isn't just a bullet point for us—it's a core commitment. This year, we upgraded Liberica JDK Performance Edition to JVM 21 for both Java 8 and Java 11 builds. The results speak for themselves: 5-10% better performance in most workloads, with some cases showing gains up to 40%.
We understand that many organizations remain on Java 8 or 11 not out of neglect, but because these versions are stable, proven, and deeply integrated into critical systems. Our Performance Edition provides a practical path forward—unlocking modern JVM performance without requiring code changes or risky migrations.
Security at the Foundation
Security is non-negotiable. This year's launch of BellSoft Hardened Images represents the culmination of month s of work focused on filling a critical gap in the market. Our 3-in-1 approach—build, maintain, and support at both OS and runtime levels—delivers near-zero CVE container images while providing the resource optimization benefits of switching to optimized JDK distributions.
Our recent survey revealed that 49% of organizations cite time and resource constraints as a primary challenge in maintaining container security. When asked "What would most help your organization improve container security?", the number one response was pre-hardened images. BellSoft Hardened Images addresses both needs while delivering tangible resource efficiency benefits—reduced RAM usage and disk space—when migrating from other JDKs to Liberica. We're proud that this solution has already generated strong interest from enterprises looking to modernize their container security posture.
A Stronger Foundation with Alpaquita Linux 25 LTS
We released Alpaquita Linux 25 LTS with 6 years of support ahead. Built on kernel 6.12 and updated with glibc 2.39 and musl 1.2.5, this release delivers enhanced security, better performance, and improved memory efficiency. For teams building cloud-native applications, Alpaquita continues to prove itself as a lightweight, secure, and reliable foundation, and a enterprise alternative to Alpine linux.
Trust from the Community
The strongest validation of our work comes from the community. This year, Liberica Runtime Containers were pulled 4x more times compared to 2024. Alpaquita downloads doubled. Liberica JDK downloads increased by 55%. When developers vote with their infrastructure choices at this scale, it tells us we're on the right path.
We're honored that Liberica JDK was recognized in both the G2 Fall and Winter reports as a high performer—with a 100% satisfaction rate. That's not a metric we take lightly. It reflects the effort our engineering and support teams pour into every release, every patch, and every customer interaction.
What speaks volumes about our product quality is client retention: once organizations sign with us for Liberica JDK, they stay. 100% retention. Zero churn. This year, we added several important names to our client portfolio, including major financial institutions that trust Liberica JDK with their most critical workloads.
We see companies from around the world choosing our products. Each deployment is a vote of confidence, and we're deeply grateful for that trust.
For the Community, By the Community
Developer relations isn't just a department at BellSoft—it's part of our DNA. This year, our DevRel team has been everywhere, and their work has been exceptional.
We launched Cyber Jar, our new YouTube channel, which has already got positive feedback from the community. The livestreams feature guests like Josh Long, Rod Johnson, Simon Martinelli, Frank Delporte and Siva Prasad Reddy, creating spaces for real conversations about Java, technology, and the future of development.
We also relaunched JRush, our free live events where we share trends, knowledge, and practical coding insights. After kicking off in June, we repeated the success in November, and the response has been tremendous.
Our Developer Advocates spoke at all major Java conferences across the US and Europe this year. Their presence at these events ensures we're not just talking to the community—we're listening, learning, and staying connected with what developers actually need.
Looking Ahead
As I look at what we've accomplished in 2025, I'm struck by how much of it was a team effort. Our engineers who build and maintain the JDK. Our security experts who ensure every release meets the highest standards. Our Developer Relations team who keep us connected to the community. Our support team who helps customers succeed every day. And our partners who trust us with their most critical applications.
None of this happens without people. The best technology in the world is meaningless if it doesn't solve real problems for real organizations. That's what drives us.
As we move into 2026, we remain committed to what we do best: delivering the most complete Java experience. We'll continue to push the boundaries of performance and security. We'll keep investing in our community. And we'll maintain the stability and reliability that enterprise teams depend on.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Here's to the year ahead.
