Jakarta EE Developer Survey 2025 shows growth in Java 21 and Cloud

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The Eclipse Foundation has published the results of the 2025 Jakarta EE Developer Survey. With over 1,700 participants – an increase of 20 percent compared to the previous year –, the survey provides a comprehensive insight into the state of Enterprise Java worldwide. The results emphasise the growing influence of Jakarta EE, especially in the context of cloud-native applications and modern Java development.

The Eclipse Foundation is one of the largest open source organisations and supports projects such as Jakarta EE. With the annual Jakarta EE Developer Survey, it analyses trends and priorities in the global Java community.

Jakarta EE overtakes Spring

For the first time, the Java platform Jakarta EE is ahead of Spring (56 per cent) with 58 per cent usage. This change marks a milestone in the enterprise Java world. The decisive factors are the release of Jakarta EE 11 on the one hand, and growing awareness of the fact that Spring itself is based on Jakarta EE specifications on the other.

Although the full platform version was not released until after the survey was completed, 18 per cent of respondents are already using Jakarta EE 11. Early adoption is particularly dominant in smaller companies (fewer than 500 employees), but large companies with 10,000 or more employees are also showing significant interest.

The online conference on Java 25

On 14 October, everything at the betterCode() Java 2025 will revolve around the newly released Java 25. The online conference organised by iX and dpunkt verlag will cover the key innovations in six presentations. A keynote speech by Adam Bien on 30 years of Java will round off the day.

Java 21 is gaining ground

A clear trend: 43 per cent of developers are already using Java 21 – At the same time, the use of older versions such as Java 8 and 17 is declining. Java 11, on the other hand, is experiencing a slight comeback, reaching 37%.

Cloud strategies remain diverse – Uncertainty is growing

The strategies for cloud migration continue to vary. Although lift-and-shift remains the leading strategy at 22 per cent, uncertainty is clearly increasing at the same time: 20 per cent of respondents still have no clear cloud strategy in 2025, almost twice as many as in the previous year.

Community focus: cloud-native and faster innovation

According to the survey, the community's priorities are clearly shifting towards cloud-native readiness and faster implementation of Jakarta EE specifications in application servers. Developers also apparently want practical Kubernetes features such as health checks, secrets management and telemetry support.

A turning point for enterprise Java

The results of this year's survey show how Enterprise Java is evolving step by step. Developers are increasingly focussing on Jakarta EE, are using new Java versions such as Java 21 more quickly and are increasingly turning to cloud-native approaches.

Many teams are already actively working on cloud migrations, but some are clearly still looking for the right strategy. At the same time, companies are making their architectures more flexible and adapting existing systems to modern requirements. This puts Jakarta EE increasingly at the centre of current developments in the Java ecosystem.

Further information and access to the survey can be found in the blog post on the Eclipse Foundation website.

(mdo)