Enterprise Java is currently experiencing a renaissance, ever since the change in name from Java EE to Jakarta EE and the transfer of the project from Oracle to the Eclipse Foundation. This is according to Mike Milinkovich, executive director of The Eclipse Foundation, in response to the results of the foundation’s 2021 Jakarta EE Developer Survey.

According to the report, Jakarta EE was the second most used cloud native framework, with 47% of users having adopted it. The most popular framework was Spring and Spring Boot, with 60% usage. 

“With the delivery of Jakarta EE 9 in December 2020, Jakarta EE continues to fulfill its promise of accelerating business application development for the cloud, emerging as the second most used cloud native framework at 47% in this year’s survey,” the report stated. 

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In addition, adoption of Eclipse MicroProfile is increasing. This year, adoption increased to 34% of respondents, up from 29% in 2020. MicroProfile is a project that aims to provide a portable microservices architecture for enterprise Java. 

More and more Java developers are also turning to microservices architectures. This year, usage increased to 43%, from 39% last year. 

The top three priorities for Jakarta EE as defined by the community are:

  1. Native integration with Kubernetes
  2. Better support for microservices
  3. Faster pace of innovation

“The 2021 Jakarta EE Developer Survey shows a healthy improvement in developer awareness and use of Jakarta EE across the board and is another indicator that it is the right platform for cloud-native Java innovation,” said Melissa Modjeski, vice president of app platform and integration at IBM. “As a runtime certified as both Jakarta EE and MicroProfile compatible, Open Liberty delivers on the promise of Cloud Native Java and is an essential element of accelerating open hybrid cloud adoption.”