# Java 553 Hacker News commenters recommended Java and 514 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 13 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 15 years (34 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended for strong runtime performance, a huge mature ecosystem and stable, well-signposted upgrades; critics cite slow startup, memory footprint and awkward, bolted-on language features. ## Why people recommend it - Fast runtime performance (7 comments): "Been a great decision so far: great ecosystem, bulletproof runtime, fantastic performance and new quality features arriving on a steady schedule." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716161)) "There are no GC pauses in modern Java implementations, and there are plenty of systems written in C and C++ that have been replaced by Java" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50301319)) "running vector version of java code from same repo brings runtime to 392ms which is literally fastest out of all solutions including c++" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849142)) - Rich, mature libraries and tooling (5 comments): "Java has a long track record of delivering very good performance in those contexts, coupled with an extremely rich and mature library/tooling ecosystem." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49656194)) "Been a great decision so far: great ecosystem, bulletproof runtime, fantastic performance and new quality features arriving on a steady schedule." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716161)) "Java was a decent language and getting better and its tooling was stellar, beyond anything those two ecosystems can muster today." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46244356)) - Stable upgrades, little breakage (3 comments): "What I do like about java is that when breaking changes must happen (and they do occasionally), they are almost always small and the java authors signpost it WELL in advance" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49122032)) "my recent legacy Java project migration from JDK 8 -> 21 & a ton of dependency upgrades has been a pretty smooth experience so far" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46008045)) "the Java ecosystem isn’t JS where breakage is so common that you have to be extra careful about the version of Node you’re using" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076553)) - Steady stream of new features (3 comments): "Been a great decision so far: great ecosystem, bulletproof runtime, fantastic performance and new quality features arriving on a steady schedule." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716161)) "This more agile approach is a lot better in my experience and we see that the changes made are more relevant and what people actually want." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49715274)) "Java actually gives lots of really great tools and language features that allow you to write relatively pretty, terse, performant code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49123669)) ## What people warn about - Slow startup, high memory footprint (3 comments): "Keep in mind speed and throughput are not the only performance metrics. So is startup time and memory footprint, where Java loses badly here." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49093143)) "But it historically hasn't handled computer graphics well and can feel very slow and bloated when something needs that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46051017)) "Java has significant overhead, that most/every object is allocated on heap, synchronized and has extra overhead of memory and performance to be GC controlled." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47390376)) - Awkward, bolted-on language features (4 comments): "Almost every feature bolted onto Java seems to take several times more code, and doesn't really work with the rest of the language." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45905761)) "The more I work in Java, the more I feel friction between the language, its identity(OO beginning to incorporate functional ideas), and how people write in it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46041399)) "When it's disallowed (like Java, unfortunately), trying to reduce a directed graph structure to a single dominant hierarchy is quite the bothersome choice." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166001)) - Garbage collection overhead (2 comments): "I've seen plenty of Java applications spend 30 seconds or longer because they had to do a full garbage collection back in the day." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49731657)) "Java has significant overhead, that most/every object is allocated on heap, synchronized and has extra overhead of memory and performance to be GC controlled." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47390376)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend - [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend - [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend - [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend - [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Java", https://hackerapproved.com/p/java/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).