What the 2021 JVM Ecosystem Survey Reveals About Java, OpenJDK, and Tooling Trends

Recently, security firm Snyk and JDK vendor Azul released the 2021 JVM ecosystem report, which gathered questionnaire responses from more than 2,000 Java developers worldwide over six weeks, providing an objective reference for developers and technology decision‑makers.

Overall Trends

44% of production environments use OpenJDK.

60% of production uses JDK 11 (the figure may be lower in China).

25% of developers use the latest JDK version (JDK 15 at the time of the survey).

Kotlin is the second most popular JVM language after Java.

90% of developers use Java for applications.

Half of developers use Spring Boot as their framework.

Maven remains the dominant build tool with 75% usage.

70% of developers use IntelliJ IDEA as their IDE.

❝ The percentages refer to the proportion of surveyed developers.

OpenJDK Becomes Mainstream

OpenJDK suppliers are increasing, even Microsoft has open‑sourced its JDK. In the previous report Oracle JDK held 34% share, but this year OpenJDK leads with 77% of respondents using it as the primary choice, while Oracle still controls over 50% of the combined market.

❝ The development‑environment survey results are similar and are omitted here.

Java 11 Surpasses Java 8 in Production

Java 8 usage has declined for three consecutive years; for the first time Java 11 slightly overtook Java 8 in production. The author notes personal interest in the upcoming Java 17.

❝ In development, programmers tend to experiment more with higher‑version JDKs, but the overall trend mirrors the production data.

Java Remains the Primary JVM Language

91% of respondents prefer Java as their JVM language, while 17.7% also use Kotlin, often together with Java due to strong interoperability. Groovy and Scala also have notable usage in their niches.

❝ Kotlin lacks the ecosystem momentum of Groovy and Scala, which benefit from flagship projects like Gradle and Kafka.

Which IDE Leads?

IntelliJ IDEA is the clear favorite, with 51.3% using the paid Ultimate edition and 27.3% using the free Community edition. Many developers use multiple IDEs; Visual Studio Code is growing rapidly, while Eclipse’s share is declining.

Build Tools Remain Stable

Maven continues to dominate as the top build tool, with Gradle needing to improve its position.

Spring Remains Dominant

Spring stays the leading application framework. However, Struts has dropped out of the top ten, while newer frameworks such as Micronaut, MicroProfile, and Quarkus are gaining traction, reflecting the rise of cloud‑native development on the JVM.

Conclusion

The survey, while streamlined, offers a clear view of the metrics that matter to JVM developers. Most respondents are from Europe and the United States, with over half working at companies of 1,000+ employees; Asian representation is only about 12%.

To obtain the full report, follow the author’s account and reply with “2021JVM”.