by Simon Ritter
opinionMay 12, 20267 mins
With the release of JDK 26, which arrived March 17, we’ve now seen 17 versions of Java delivered under the time-based six-month release cadence. Nobody can call this anything other than a huge success for Java. In the last eight years, we’ve seen the Java platform move forward faster than at any time in its history. In addition, the faster release cadence has made preview features and incubator modules a practical reality. This allows fully developed features to be tested by developers, with feedback incorporated before the feature is finalized. Within practical limits, Java developers get exactly what they want in new features.
As an interesting note, JDK 26 is the first Java version in which no preview features have been made final. What then does JDK 26 deliver?
There are 10 JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs), which are the mechanism for defining new features in the OpenJDK project. This is slightly below average, but it’s worth noting that it is not a long-term support (LTS) release. LTS versions of Java are the ones that OpenJDK distributions commit to providing extended maintenance and support for, so they are more likely to be used in production. This does not mean JDK 26 is not production quality; if you use a CI/CD pipeline with frequent deployments, JDK 26 will be great for running your applications.
