Despite its strong heritage and widespread use across sectors such as finance, e-commerce, and education, Jakarta EE often flies under the radar in modern architectural discussions. It’s not a flashy new framework, nor does a single vendor's roadmap drive it, and that’s precisely why it deserves your attention.
In this article, I will talk about why Jakarta EE is the best technology investment for you as a Software Architect, C-level, and Senior Engineer as well.
1. You're Already Using Jakarta EE, Whether You Know It or Not
If you're a Java developer, chances are you're already leveraging Jakarta EE under the hood. The Jakarta EE ecosystem powers much of what we take for granted in modern Java development:
- Spring Data Relational utilises Jakarta Persistence (formerly known as JPA).
- Quarkus builds on CDI (Context and Dependency Injection).
- Tomcat, the default servlet container in many applications, relies on Jakarta Servlet.
Jakarta EE is the backbone of enterprise Java. It’s the standard API layer beneath many frameworks. Ignoring it is like ignoring the foundation of the house you live in.
2. Standardised and Predictable
Jakarta EE is governed by a transparent, open specification process under the Eclipse Foundation. This ensures:
- Backward compatibility
- Explicit versioning
- Stable APIs
Despite a trend of frameworks that change and break compatibility all the time, Jakarta EE stands out by prioritising long-term architectural stability. No abrupt deprecations. No major rewrites every two years.
3. Vendor-Neutral and Deployment-Agnostic
You’re not tied to any single vendor or cloud provider. Whether it’s Payara, Open Liberty, WildFly, TomEE, or a native image built with GraalVM, Jakarta EE lets you choose your runtime.
This avoids the classic vendor lock-in trap, which is crucial for organisations that require procurement flexibility, negotiation leverage, or hybrid deployment models.
4. Polyglot Persistence Without the Pain
Need both relational and NoSQL support? Jakarta EE has you covered:
- Jakarta Persistence (JPA) for relational databases
- Jakarta NoSQL for NoSQL databases, such as document, column, key-value, and graph stores
- Jakarta Data for implementing a consistent persistence layer using repository-style access patterns
- Jakarta Query is an object-oriented query language designed to work seamlessly with Jakarta Persistence, Jakarta Data, and Jakarta NoSQL.
This makes it easy to implement polyglot persistence strategies without cobbling together unrelated third-party libraries.
5. A Strategic Long-Term Investment
Frameworks come and go, but Jakarta EE evolves with the Java platform itself. Jakarta EE 11 aligns with Java 17 and supports Java 21, where you can use the most modern language features inside your code, for example, Jakarta Bean Validation and Jakarta Persistence with support to record usage, as Jakarta Concurrency with support for virtual threads as well.
Choosing Jakarta EE means investing in longevity and continuity, not in trendy tools with uncertain futures.
6. CloudNative Ready, Incrementally
Modernisation doesn't have to mean disruption. Jakarta EE supports incremental evolution toward cloud-native architectures:
- Use Jakarta REST for APIs.
- Jakarta Config for environment abstraction.
- Pair it with Eclipse MicroProfile for observability capabilities such as metrics, health checks, distributed tracing, and fault tolerance.
- Implement the principles of the Twelve-Factor App methodology to build scalable, portable, and maintainable applications.
You can migrate monoliths to microservices gradually, without a total rewrite. Microservices are not a silver bullet, and Jakarta EE recognises that reality. It offers the flexibility to adapt to your preferred architectural style, whether you're designing a modular monolith, microservices, event-driven systems, or a hybrid approach. Jakarta EE supports your strategy, rather than forcing a specific paradigm.
7. Security and Compliance as a First Citizen
When we talk about the more modern application, security is not optional, it guarantees reliability inside the organisation. Furthermore, consistency inside the product is foundational.
Jakarta EE offers:
- Jakarta Security for role-based access control and identity integration.
- Built-in support for JWT, OAuth, and OpenID Connect.
- Declarative and programmatic access control where you can create extensions for your case and scenario.
This helps to use the most modern and most efficient, and safer practices in the market, such as SOC2, GDPR, and ISO 27001, with minimal overhead.
8. Extensive Documentation and Knowledge Base
With over two decades of history, Jakarta EE benefits from:
- Rich official documentation.
- Countless tutorials, books, and academic materials.
- A global community of contributors, educators, and practitioners.
- Public success stories from organisations like the Brazilian Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro), which uses Jakarta EE for national-scale applications.
- Endorsements and contributions from experts such as Adam Bien, Ivar Grimstad, and Reza Rahman.
This maturity and recognition reduce the risk of onboarding, upskilling, or troubleshooting, a luxury that newer frameworks often lack.
9. Shared Investment by the Industry
Jakarta EE isn’t tied to just one vendor like some popular open source frameworks. Because of this shared oversight, the project can’t be left to sit still or dropped entirely by any single player.
That broad backing gives architects the steady, forward-looking, and free-from-lock-in platform guarantee they need when choosing a foundation for their apps.
10. Open Source and Open Standard
Jakarta EE is not just open source, it’s an open standard. That means:
- You’re not beholden to closed code or private roadmaps.
- You get complete visibility into every layer of the spec.
- You can trust the platform to evolve in a vendor-neutral, community-driven way.
For CTOs and architects, this translates to strategic control over your software stack.
Conclusion
Jakarta EE may not be the loudest or trendiest player in the software landscape, and that’s precisely what makes it powerful. Some developers may find this boring, but it does work. For businesses and organisations, it is a guarantee to look into the business instead of rewriting the same functionality because a framework breaks compatibility. It guarantees software stability while keeping pace with modern innovation, integrating features like virtual threads, container-native profiles, and cloud-ready APIs without breaking your architecture.
In short, if you are looking for a safer technology that guarantees stability while providing a glimpse into the future of software development, rather than chasing hype. With Jakarta EE, we will receive stability, interoperability, and freedom. Jakarta EE isn’t just a safe bet, but a smart, and strategic one too.
About the Author
Otavio Santana
Otavio is an award-winning software engineer and architect who is passionate about empowering other engineers with open source best practices to build highly scalable and efficient software. He is a renowned contributor to the Java and open-source ecosystems and has received numerous awards and accolades for his work. Otavio's interests include history, the economy, travel, and fluency in multiple languages, all seasoned with a great sense of humour.