Why 73% of Companies Face Oracle Java Audits and How to Switch to OpenJDK

Dimensional Research released a study on Java compliance, audits, open‑source usage, and licensing.

In the past three years, 73% of surveyed enterprises reported encountering Oracle‑initiated Java license and compliance audits.

This audit pressure has led many companies to consider abandoning Oracle Java in favor of OpenJDK or other distributions.

The survey shows 15% have completed migration, 22% have started, and 25% are planning migration, while only 14% intend to continue using Oracle Java subscriptions.

Oracle’s recent change to the Java SE Universal Subscription introduced a pricing model based on total employee count rather than only Java users, exemplified by a calculation for a company with 28,000 employees (28,000 × 6.75 USD per month).

The new model increases software costs for many enterprises, adding to the motivation to switch.

Historically, Java originated as Oak at Sun Microsystems, was renamed Java in 1995, and was acquired by Oracle in 2009, after which Oracle intensified commercialisation and audit activities.

OpenJDK, an open‑source GPL‑v2 project, has become the official reference implementation since Java 7, and many vendors now offer their own OpenJDK‑based distributions, such as:

Tencent Kona (Tencent)

Dragonwell (Alibaba)

Amazon Corretto (Amazon)

Azul Zulu (Azul)

AdoptOpenJDK (Adoptium)

Liberica JDK (BellSoft)

These alternatives allow organizations to choose a JDK that fits their business needs while avoiding Oracle’s licensing constraints.