# JVM Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/jvm/ 31 people recommended JVM in Hacker News comments, 7 had mixed feelings and 21 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 12 months, in 34 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Mature, fast runtime with strong garbage collectors, observability and a huge library ecosystem; critics say it uses a lot of memory and its tooling is frustrating. Summary written by Claude from 56 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 55 of those comments still count. ## Why people recommend it - Virtual threads for high concurrency (4 comments in the sample): "the JVM and the BEAM are still better able to handle the types of high-traffic, high-concurrency workloads" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48392364)) "JVM has real and virtual threads and arguably just as good if not better on all these points." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49286326)) "They just released virtual threads, which are ridiculously awesome" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793624)) - Excellent garbage collectors (4 comments in the sample): "GC available on JVM and CLR runtimes are much more advanced than WASM GC will ever be." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47299652)) "the JVM does a superior job at optimization and has superior GCs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49854071)) "superior GCs, optimization, speed, and observability" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48365779)) - Fast, mature, heavily optimized runtime (3 comments in the sample): "JVM runtime is undeniably the most well researched and optimized runtime in history of runtimes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48381598)) "The JVM has been extremely fast for a long long time now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47763016)) "the JVM is mature and I think generally respected" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47739722)) - Large ecosystem and deployment experience (2 comments in the sample): "Being able to leverage the extensive JVM ecosystem is an enormous advantage for any real business" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47616368)) "first class development experience, and decades of deployment experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48291065)) ## What people warn about - High memory and resource use (6 comments in the sample): "it's challenging to write high-performing and memory-efficient code on the JVM in general" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46823685)) "The cherry on the cake is the huge hog of an runtime called the JVM." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49131959)) "I wish JVM could at least recover the memory after some time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49656294)) - Build and tooling are frustrating (3 comments in the sample): "this rules out the JVM which has the worst build system and package repositories I've ever had the displeasure of needing to use." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129798)) "I have found the jvm ecosystem terrible for observability." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50136949)) "I'd rather built it myself than tangle with JVM tooling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49244451)) ## Other language runtimes people recommend - [.NET](https://hackerapproved.com/p/net/): 215 recommend, 53 mixed, 120 criticize - [BEAM (Erlang VM)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/beam/): 56 recommend, 12 mixed, 12 criticize - [Java Virtual Machine](https://hackerapproved.com/p/java-virtual-machine/): 28 recommend, 13 mixed, 20 criticize - [GraalVM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/graalvm/): 15 recommend, 13 mixed, 17 criticize ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "JVM", https://hackerapproved.com/p/jvm/ (31 recommend, 7 mixed, 21 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.