Parallel GC (OpenJDK)
Shares rank 3 of 4 garbage collectors by recommenders
Java's throughput-focused collector, well suited to batch jobs. It gives application threads the full CPU, but it pauses them during collection.
Java's throughput-focused collector, well suited to batch jobs. It gives application threads the full CPU, but it pauses them during collection.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not 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
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 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
Maximum throughput for batch workloads
“Maximal throughput when latency doesn't matter (batch processing)”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Reverting the incremental GC in Python 3.14 and 3.15” “it's the best collector around for that data pipeline”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Dissecting the CPU-Memory Relationship in Garbage Collection (OpenJDK 26)” “It's hard to beat Parallel on batch workloads”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Why is Arrays.fill 265 times slower on G1GC?” - Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Implementation of a Java Processor on a FPGA (2016)”
Fast throughput on modern CPUs
“the parallel and often even the serial collector will give G1 latency even on major collections with superior throughput”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Why is Arrays.fill 265 times slower on G1GC?” “With modern CPUs, parallel is really fast.”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Dissecting the CPU-Memory Relationship in Garbage Collection (OpenJDK 26)”
Other garbage collectors people recommend
The three most recommended other garbage collectors, 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZGC garbage collector | 17 | 7 | 71% | 10 | — | Approved |
| G1 garbage collector | 6 | 1 | 86% | 5 | — | — |
| Parallel GC (OpenJDK)This page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 4 | — | — |
| Boehm GC | 5 | 5 | 50% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the parallel and often even the serial collector will give G1 latency even on major collections with superior throughput”
“It's hard to beat Parallel on batch workloads”
“Parallel GC has a simple barrier and do not care about latency”
“The parallel collector is a perfectly fine collector, particularly for smaller heaps.”
“Maximal throughput when latency doesn't matter (batch processing)”
“it will eat through the cpu limit of the app in a blink”
“That parallel GC in Java still seems to pause threads”
“With modern CPUs, parallel is really fast.”
“By accepting the pauses, you get the benefit of zero concurrent overhead, dedicating 100% of the CPU to your application threads”
“it's the best collector around for that data pipeline”
“Certainly for batch-processing programs.”
“The Parallel GC is still useful sometimes!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.