We are happy to announce the general availability of Liberica JDK 25, a new LTS JDK release that will receive quarterly updates and support until September 2033.
Long-term supported JDK versions often become the foundation for enterprise applications for many years to come, so if you are planning to upgrade, here’s what you need to know about JDK 25.
What’s New in JDK 25
The new LTS release JDK 25 includes 18 JEPs that bring several production-ready features to the Java platform and multiple enhancements aimed at increasing the Java performance, security, and usability.
We looked into each JEP in our video “Unboxing Java 25 features” available on YouTube. In this article, we’ll summarize each JEP at a glance.
Performance
- JEP 521: Generational Shenandoah turns the generational mode of Shenandoah GC into a production-ready feature.
- JEP 519: Compact Object Headers reduces the size of Java object headers to 64 bits on 64-bit architectures.
- JEP 515: Ahead-of-Time Method Profiling stores method-execution profiles in the AOT cache so the JIT can start optimizing faster on startup.
- JEP 502: Stable Values (Preview) introduces a new API for objects with deferred initialization holding immutable data.
- JEP 508: Vector API (Tenth Incubator) keeps refining the API for expressing multiple vector computations that compile to optimal CPU instructions for tangible performance gains.
Observability
- JEP 520: JFR Method Timing & Tracing enables gathering precise per-method statistics via JVM-side bytecode instrumentation.
- JEP 518: JFR Cooperative Sampling makes JFR stack sampling safer by sampling stacks at safepoints with cooperative requests with reduced bias.
- JEP 509: JFR CPU-Time Profiling (Experimental) adds an integrated CPU-time profiler to JFR to attribute CPU usage to threads/methods with low overhead.
Security
- JEP 470: PEM Encodings of Cryptographic Objects (Preview) adds an API to encode/decode keys, certs, and certificate revocation lists to/from PEM.
- JEP 510: Key Derivation Function API standardizes an API for deriving cryptographic keys from passwords/inputs, unifying KDF usage.
Usability
- JEP 505: Structured Concurrency (Fifth Preview) further refines an API for managing groups of related subtasks as a single unit of work.
- JEP 514: Ahead-of-Time Command-Line Ergonomics merges two commands for creating the AOT cache into one with -XX:AOTCacheOutput.
- JEP 506: Scoped Values provide a safer alternative to ThreadLocal variables for sharing immutable data down a call tree and to child threads, especially with virtual threads.
- JEP 507: Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch (Third Preview) extends pattern matching to primitives so instanceof/switch work more uniformly across all types.
- JEP 511: Module Import Declarations introduces the ability to import all module packages by importing their module, smoothing out program ergonomics.
- JEP 512: Compact Source Files & Instance Main Methods finalizes the beginner-friendly possibility to write simple Java programs without hardcore enterprise Java features.
- JEP 513: Flexible Constructor Bodies allows statements before super()/this(), enabling validation and initialization in a constructor.
JEP 503: Remove Source & Build Support for 32-bit x86 deserves a separate note. It has served its purpose for many years, but no new 32-bit-only x86 hardware is manufactured anymore. Therefore, it was decided to remove the source code and build support for 32-bit x86 port with the intent of decreasing maintainability burden for new Java features.
Should You Consider Changing the JDK Vendor?
Upgrading the JDK version means substituting every Java runtime in your enterprise with a more performant, secure, and developer-friendly one. This is a perfect moment to revisit your JDK vendor as well, since costs, licensing, support model, and additional offerings may affect your business strategy even more than the actual Java version.
If you use Oracle Java, you may want to consider moving to OpenJDK for two major reasons:
- Oracle’s Java SE Universal Subscription makes licensing tied to a total number of employees, including part-time workers and temporary personnel. OpenJDK distributions that offer commercial support have more cost-efficient offerings.
- Free quarterly updates for LTS Oracle Java versions are provided for three years, whereas most OpenJDK vendors provide free updates for a longer period of time.
If you doubt the quality of OpenJDK distributions as compared to Oracle Java, read the article comparing Oracle to OpenJDK to get a more detailed picture of their differences and similarities.
Get the Most Complete Java Experience with Liberica JDK
Several OpenJDK distributions are available: they are all open source and freely available, have the same code base as Oracle Java, but differ in additional offerings. Therefore, the choice should be based on your business needs.
Liberica JDK is the only runtime that provides the most complete Java experience:
- The broadest range of supported platforms and versions. BellSoft supports all LTS versions, the current non-LTS version, legacy Java 6 & 7, and GraalVM. In addition, we provide a Liberica JDK bundle with CRaC support.
- Three flavors. Liberica JDK Standard, Liberica JDK Full with JavaFX, and Liberica JDK Lite optimized for cloud deployments.
- Affordable prices. You can use Liberica JDK for free or with our support. Flexible plans are customized for your requirements, and 24/7 service comes directly from Java engineers.
- Alpaquita Containers based on lightweight Alpaquita Linux tailored for Java applications.
Find out even more Liberica JDK features in our overview of Oracle Java alternatives or get a comparative table of commercial offerings of OpenJDK vendors vs Oracle.
Download Liberica JDK 25 Now!
Upgrading to JDK 25 is the perfect time to rethink not just your version, but your JDK vendor. Liberica JDK gives you a secure, TCK-verified, drop-in replacement with long-term support, performance optimizations, and zero-surprise licensing. Don’t let Java upgrades become a budgeting nightmare, take control of your stack. Download Liberica JDK today and future-proof your Java workloads.
