jpackage
Installer builder in Developer tools
Packages a Java app into a platform-specific installer with a bundled JRE, so it is easy to ship. Caveat: setting up jlink and jpackage together is painful.
Packages a Java app into a platform-specific installer with a bundled JRE, so it is easy to ship. Caveat: setting up jlink and jpackage together is painful.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Builds installers for each platform
“It does all of this work for you and its a standard tool that dumps out a platform specific application bundle.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “2026: The Year of Java in the Terminal” “I can jpackage it and run it Linux/Windows/macOS .. it's quite easy to get working.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JavaFX 27 Native Image on a Raspberry Pi 5” “jpackage/jlink lets you distribute an exe, dmg, etc, with the JVM packaged inside.”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Ruby vs. Java vs. TypeScript: my experience on building a Cowork DOCX plugin” - Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “2026: The Year of Java in the Terminal”
Easy to ship Java apps
“I can jpackage it and run it Linux/Windows/macOS .. it's quite easy to get working.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JavaFX 27 Native Image on a Raspberry Pi 5” “It's designed to make it easy to ship Java applications around.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “2026: The Year of Java in the Terminal” “It solved many things especially using jpackage.”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “Goodbye Java, Hello Go” Bundles a trimmed JRE
“jpackage/jlink lets you distribute an exe, dmg, etc, with the JVM packaged inside.”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Ruby vs. Java vs. TypeScript: my experience on building a Cowork DOCX plugin” “use jpackage to ship an installable app with a bundled, trimmed JRE”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “2026: The Year of Java in the Terminal”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Painful jlink and jpackage setup
“creating a bundled application with a stripped down JDK with jlink and jpackage is incredibly painful”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Java 26 is here, and with it a solid foundation for the future” “merely runs jlink and is intended to let you edit the bundle before calling jpackage again”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “JEP 544: Ahead-of-Time Code Compilation” “yes, I agree jlink and jpackage is not good enough”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “2026: The Year of Java in the Terminal” Installers extract into several files
“doesn’t work with standard build tooling, and unless something has changed it produces installers that extract into several different files”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “2026: The Year of Java in the Terminal” “don't extract themselves into several files”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “2026: The Year of Java in the Terminal” Forces installer or application output
“jpackage is heavily oriented around installable artifacts, it creates a .deb or .rpm for Linux for example”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “JEP 544: Ahead-of-Time Code Compilation” “the jpackage system forces you into making an installer/application”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Easel Turns One One year of building my own IDE in Clojure”
What people recommend instead
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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSIS | 12 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| jpackageThis page | 7 | 6 | 54% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's around 50MBs... doesn't provide crosscompilation... ugly installers”
“I can jpackage it and run it Linux/Windows/macOS .. it's quite easy to get working.”
“merely runs jlink and is intended to let you edit the bundle before calling jpackage again”
“jpackage is heavily oriented around installable artifacts, it creates a .deb or .rpm for Linux for example”
“jpackage/jlink lets you distribute an exe, dmg, etc, with the JVM packaged inside.”
“creating a bundled application with a stripped down JDK with jlink and jpackage is incredibly painful”
“It solved many things especially using jpackage.”
“yes, I agree jlink and jpackage is not good enough”
“use jpackage to ship an installable app with a bundled, trimmed JRE”
“the jpackage system forces you into making an installer/application”
“It's designed to make it easy to ship Java applications around.”
“don't extract themselves into several files”
“It does all of this work for you and its a standard tool that dumps out a platform specific application bundle.”
“doesn’t work with standard build tooling, and unless something has changed it produces installers that extract into several different files”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.