# Parallel GC (OpenJDK)

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Parallel GC (OpenJDK) and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Java's throughput-focused collector, well suited to batch jobs. It gives application threads the full CPU, but it pauses them during collection.

## Why people recommend it

- Maximum throughput for batch workloads (4 comments): "Maximal throughput when latency doesn't matter (batch processing)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48135168)) "it's the best collector around for that data pipeline" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47159139)) "It's hard to beat Parallel on batch workloads" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567650))
- Fast throughput on modern CPUs (2 comments): "the parallel and often even the serial collector will give G1 latency even on major collections with superior throughput" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567925)) "With modern CPUs, parallel is really fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47159260))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [ZGC garbage collector](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zgc.md): 17 recommend
- [G1 garbage collector](https://hackerapproved.com/p/g1-garbage-collector.md): 6 recommend
- [Boehm GC](https://hackerapproved.com/p/boehm-gc.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Parallel GC (OpenJDK)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/parallel-gc/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).