Java Development Kit (JDK)
Ranked 3 of 3 java development kits by recommenders
People recommend the JDK for its performance gains, backward compatibility across versions, and strong debugging features. Critics mainly point to the pace of releases and the size of the download.
People recommend the JDK for its performance gains, backward compatibility across versions, and strong debugging features. Critics mainly point to the pace of releases and the size of the download.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 67%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Gets faster and lighter over time
“I am happy to see JDK versions actually becoming faster and lighter over time.”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Why is Arrays.fill 265 times slower on G1GC?” “Upgrade your JDK for the best performance”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Why is Arrays.fill 265 times slower on G1GC?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Rapid release cadence is hard to follow
“How are you supposed to keep up with these rapid updates?”
Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “Project Valhalla, Explained: How a Decade of Work Arrives in JDK 28” Installation is too large
“The JDK is too big for every app to do that”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “YouTrackDB is a general-use object-oriented graph database” Lacks features C++ had long ago
“wow, basic stuff c++ had since the 80s.”
Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “Project Valhalla, Explained: How a Decade of Work Arrives in JDK 28”
Other java development kits people recommend
The two most recommended other java development kits, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 3 java development kits, rankedWhat people said
All 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the startup time is sub-second for small programs”
“I am happy to see JDK versions actually becoming faster and lighter over time.”
“Upgrade your JDK for the best performance”
“The JDK is too big for every app to do that”
“wow, basic stuff c++ had since the 80s.”
“How are you supposed to keep up with these rapid updates?”
“This is the correct tradeoff, vs having the JVM pessimistically unable to apply all sorts of optimizations”
“Code from JDK 8 runs fine on JDK 25 (just released LTS)”
“the debugging features of the JDK alone make it worth using”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.